: Bronze Age

The Naboth Vineyard Beaker, Llanharry (Rhondda Cynon Taff).

Discovery of the Beaker grave near Llanharry in 1929 (grave next to striped pole).

Another example of a Beaker, this time from a cist containing a female burial, discovered in 1991 in Llandaff (Cardiff). The burial was also accompanied by a bronze awl, an artefact commonly found with Beakers.

A new style of pottery appeared in Britain 4,000 years ago, but was it brought by invaders or did it evolve as a local fashion statement?

This finely decorated pot, known as a 'Beaker', was made about 4,000 years ago by an early community living in south Wales. At this time pots were handmade and fired in bonfires. It was found in September 1929 by workmen preparing a new road between Llanharan and Llanharry. This object is known as the "The Naboth Vineyard Beaker".

The Beaker had been placed in a stone-lined grave (or cist), beneath a circular mound of earth known as a barrow. The grave also contained a crouched skeleton of a man about 1.7m tall (5 foot 9 inches) and under 35 years old.

From this, and many other discoveries like it, it looks like these Beakers were very special pots, being placed beside someone when they were buried.

Their shape suggests that they were drinking vessels. They possibly containing offerings of alcohol to accompany people into the afterlife. In fact, when found, this beaker contained "slimy stuff" - could this have been the rotted remains of a funeral offering? - unfortunately, it was washed out before archaeologists could retrieve and analyse it.

This Beaker was made by rolling clay into long strips joined together at the ends to form rings that were smoothed to give the vessel shape. When the clay had dried a little, the vessel was polished (burnished) with a blunt tool, possibly of bone. Decoration was added with a toothed tool resulting in a distinctive pattern reminiscent of textile or worked leather. Finally, the Beaker was fired, giving it a rich, mottled, orange-brown colour.

Beaker pots and Beaker burials became common across much of Europe between 2800-2000BC. They are often found with daggers, flint arrowheads, and items of gold, amber, jet and bone.

In the past, it was believed that Beakers belonged to an innovative people, called the "Beaker Folk", who migrated around Europe and invaded Britain, bringing their artefacts with them.

Recently, an alternative theory has been put forward. This sees the Beaker phenomenon as a spread of common ideas or fashions across Europe, rather than a spread of people. The Beaker fashion was adopted by the people of Britain, as a result of contact and trade with Continental Europe.

In Wales, few early Beaker burials are known, and those that have been radiocarbon dated tend to be from 2300-1800BC. Beaker settlements are very rare.

Background Reading

"A Beaker-burial from Llanharry, Glamorgan" by V. E. Nash-Williams. In Archaeologia Cambrensis, vol. 85, p402-5 (1930).

Guide catalogue of the Bronze Age collections by H. N. Savory. Published by National Museum of Wales (1980).

Prehistoric Wales by F. Lynch, S. Aldhouse-Green and J. L. Davies. Sutton Publishing (2000).

Llanllyfni lunula. Weighing 185.4g (6.5 ounces) and measuring 24cm (9.5 inches) in diameter. This crescent-shaped ornament probably originated as a single rod shaped ingot and was expertly hammered into shape. The intricate decoration of zig-zags, lines and dots was then added using a fine pointed tool and a copper or bronze punch. These designs are very similar to those used to adorn pottery made at this time.

Reconstruction of a lady wearing a gold lunula from Llanllyfni, (about 2000BC).
Gold was one of the first metals to be used in Wales, along with copper and alloys such as bronze. The use of gold for jewellery and ornamentation has been a common theme since the earliest times.

This stunning decorated object is one of the earliest gold artefacts to have been found in Wales and dates to the beginning of the Bronze Age (2400-2000BC).

Yellow leaf sticking from the ground

It was found a few miles from Llanllyfni (Gwynedd) on Llecheiddior-uchaf Farm near Dolbenmaen in about 1869. A farmer noticed what he took to be a yellow laurel leaf sticking out of some peat. Later, unsatisfied with this explanation, he returned to the site and uncovered the crescent-shaped object of gold.

The Llanllyfni lunula

Known as a 'lunula' after its crescent-shape (luna = moon in Latin), objects like this have been found in Scotland, Cornwall, and north-west France, with as many as 90 being discovered in Ireland.

Lunula are generally found in isolated locations, away from ancient settlements and, like the Llanllyfni example, they have often been discovered by chance.

It has been argued that they were intended to be worn around the neck as breast plates, although the lack of wear on the gold suggests that they were only rarely used - possibly they were the symbol of a priest or were used in the rituals of a community.

The gold in the Llanllyfni lunula may come from a Welsh source, for example the Dolgellau gold belt, or north-west of Llandovery, but as so many have been discovered in Ireland, the suspicion is that it was traded as a raw material across the Irish Sea.

Background Reading

'Bronze Age gold in Britain' by J. P. Northover. In Prehistoric gold in Europe by G. Morteani and J. P. Northover. Published by Kluwer (1993).

Bronze Age goldwork of the British Isles by J. J. Taylor. Cambridge University Press (1980).

'Objects mostly of prehistoric date discovered near Beddgelert and near Brynkir station' by W. J. Hemp. In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd series, vol. 1, p166-83 (1918).

The Llandaff Beaker.

In 1992, renovations at a house in the Llandaf area of Cardiff uncovered an unusual stone slab buried by river sands and silts. Beneath the slab was a long bone and clay pot.

The pot turned out to be a beaker - a decorated clay vessel, fashionable in western Europe some 4,000 years ago, during what is known as 'the Beaker Period'. The beaker may originally have contained mead, beer or some other special brew. The stone slab marked the position of a grave.

With the cooperation and encouragement of the owners, the Department of Archaeology and Numismatics conducted an excavation in the driveway to their house, to re-expose the grave and fully excavate its contents. The enclosing cist, constructed of slabs of the local Radyr Stone, was unusual in that it was the form of a lean-to, its capstone resting at an angle of 30° contrasting with more conventional box-like, beaker cists.

Little of the skeleton remained. The expectation had been to find a crouched skeleton typical of the Beaker period, but only fragments of the cranium (the top of the skull) and limb bones survived. Additional grave-goods were unearthed, a bronze awl (a pointed tool for making holes, as in wood or leather) and a flint flake - objects that would have been buried alongside the person to be used in the 'next world'. Awls are usually associated with female burials.

Analysis of the sediment filling the grave may explain the unusual form of the cist and why only part of the skeleton was preserved. The presence of graded water-lain sediments within the grave suggests disturbance and erosion of the burial by flood water. Today the river Taff flows close by and property where the grave was discovered is built on the former floodplain of the river.