Page images
PDF
EPUB

quite recently only one of these stones was standing; but, within recent years, the second was placed upright. The larger stone is 11 feet high, 5 feet wide in the middle, and 4 feet thick; it tapers to the top (which is rounded) to 2 feet. The smaller stone, which is nearer the " Bwlch," has a flat surface on the E. and W. faces, and is 7 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 1 ft. thick.

[graphic]

66

Fig. 13.-Maen Hir, near Hafotty, (Photograph by H. Foyn)

The tumulus near Bwlch y Ddeufaen has been called Barclodiad y Gawres," or "the Giantess' Apronful." Among other stones in the district may be mentioned :

1. A group of huge stones, one 20 feet long, on the summit of a ridge called "Cefn Maen Namor," possibly Cefn Maen Mawr (or Big Stone Ridge). extending from Waen Gyrach Farm, not far from the Green Gorge, to

the western end of Tal y fan. It seems most probable that these stones were deposited by ice in their present position, abundant evidence of glacial action being found in the neighbourhood.

2. Maen Hir monolith (Fig. 13), is situated in the middle of a field, about 600 yards to the W.S. W. of Hafotty (Gyffin Parish), the same distance to the E.N.E. of Tyddyn Grasod, and 1300 yards to the N.N.W. of Llangelynin old Church.

Fig. 14.-Maen y Campiau (Photograph by A. H. Hughes)

3. Maen y Campiau (Stone of the Games). This remarkable stone (Fig. 14), which is marked on the Ordnance Map as Maen Penddu, is situated to the N.E. of Tal y fan, close to the slate quarry, and about mile to the N.W. of Caer Bach.

It is 6 feet 6 inches high, on its S.W. face is 4 feet 5 inches broad, and on its N. E. face 5 feet 10 inches broad; its girth is 12 feet 8 inches. It stands on

[merged small][graphic]

the N.W. edge of a rough circular inclosure, which measures 289 feet by 277 feet. The country around was much inhabited, and according to Pennant this large circular area, which is quite flat, was "a British circus for the exhibition of ancient games."

NOTE. For further details and illustrations of the remains in this and in the adjoining district, the reader is referred to "The Heart of Northern Wales" shortly to be published by the writer.

(To be continued.)

CERTAIN FIXED POINTS

IN

THE PRE-HISTORY OF WALES

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS,

BY HON. PROFESSOR BOYD DAWKINS, D.Sc., F.R.S.

I. INTRODUCTORY

IN taking the chair of the Cambrian Archæological Association I have the honour of succeeding to the position occupied by a long line of illustrious Presidents, who have enlarged the boundaries of history, topography, and architecture, and have thrown light on the darkness that covered the pre-history of Britain and of Europe, at the time when the Association was formed. Among them are several of my personal friends and fellow workers, Basil Jones, Babington, G. T. Clark, and Freeman, who have gone before, and Rhys, and Howorth, who are still nobly carrying forward the lamp of knowledge handed to them by their predecessors. Besides, however, using their work for the purposes of this address, I have entered into the labours of the many workers, Owen Stanley, Lloyd, Pritchard, Romilly Allen, Way, Phillimore, Barnwell, Thomas, Willoughby Gardner, and others, who have made it possible for me to treat of the pre-history of Wales.

The Cambrian Archæological Association was founded at the beginning of the great scientific renascence in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when antiquarian researches were being reduced to system, and its growth coincides with the period in which archæology became a science, ruled, like the rest, by the laws of a strict induction. It has, indeed, largely contributed to the renascence, not only by its work, but by its example, followed by the many societies and clubs throughout Wales, now exploring the antiquities of

their several districts, and collecting materials to be embodied later by the Royal Commission, presided over by Sir John Rhys, into an Archæological Domesday of Wales. It was in the caves and cairns of Wales that I found my call to the study of pre-history, and Wales gave me a standpoint from which I have dealt with the general questions of the successive civilisations, and the sequence of races, in the British Isles and in Western Europe. It is, therefore, with special pleasure that I accept the honour of being President in the land I call my own, although I cannot lay claim -having been born on Offa's Dyke-to be more than "a Marcher."

The recent installation of Prince Edward as our very own Prince is present in all our minds, and as President I offer him the homage of the Cambrian Association, of the loyal Welsh people who are doing their best to throw light on the pre-history and the history of the Principality. And in this latter connection we must note two important contributions, made since the last meeting-the work of Professor J. E. Lloyd,1 in which the story of our country is unfolded from the earliest times down to the Edwardian Conquest, and The Military Aspect of Roman Wales, by Professor Haverfield, 2 in which he has placed before us the Roman Conquest as marked by their forts. Both are works worthy of the seats of learning from which they came-our new University at Bangor and the venerable University of Oxford.

I propose to deal in the course of this address with certain fixed points in the pre-history of Wales that begins at the close of the remote period known by the geologists as Pleistocene, and ends with the Roman Conquest. I shall concentrate my attention on the facts that throw light on the evolution of the Welsh people, from the various races who have in succession

1 A History of Wales, 2 vols., 8vo, Longmans, 1911.

2 Military Aspects of Roman Wales, Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion, March 18, 1909.

« PreviousContinue »