SN60NW18

A group of small cairns is located on the lower SE-facing slope of Graig Fawr.

The eight mounds which form the subject of the initial record, and first described by the Royal Commission in 1961, are part of a much larger group which also includes vague linear banks suggesting the remains of a field system. Together they span an area of some 200m (N-S) by 130m and lie immediately beyond the land boundaries in contemporary use.
The irregularity in size and shape of the mounds, as well as their disposition and association with banking, argues for an agricultural rather than a sepulchral context. Indeed a crude linearity is evident in the distribution of the mounds, especially on the N, accentuated by the presence of linear banks. As such, this area and that of NAR 4 a short distance to the NW, seems to have been the focus of some early agricultural activity which gave rise to stone clearance. The date of this activity is unknown. A prehistoric date is possible given the proximity of sepulchral and ritual monuments and burnt mounds, though there can be no certainty of contemporaneity. Many of the mounds have been dismantled and the most likely explanation is the that they provided ready quarries for nearby stone walls.

Surveyed at 1:2500

visited D.K.Leighton 2 February 1990

[2000.11.23/RCAHMW/DKL]