Making Communities in the First Millennium BC: Meillionydd, a First Millennium BC Hillfort in North-west Wales

This volume presents the results of recent research on the first millennium BC double ringwork enclosure of Meillionydd, in Rhiw on the Llyn Peninsula. Double ringwork enclosures are a type of small Iron Age hillfort and there is a particular cluster on the Llyn peninsula, revealing the presence of a localised settlement tradition. Bangor University’s large-scale area excavations at Meillionydd, led by Ray Karl, Katharina Moeller and Kate Waddington between 2010-2017, uncovered a densely occupied settlement with several phases of occupation. Recent analyses of the artefacts and radiocarbon dates have transformed our understandings of the history of this site. The hilltop was first occupied in the Early Neolithic and again in the Early Bronze Age period: the Early Neolithic evidence is closely associated with the adjacent Mynydd Rhiw axe-factory. The site was then reoccupied in the Early Iron Age, when the double ringwork enclosure was built, first in timber and, shortly afterwards, in stone. The recent analyses of the radiocarbon dates have enabled us to think about the history and occupation of the hillfort on a generational level, and it questions traditional understandings in Iron Age archaeology of long-lived hillfort traditions spanning several centuries. The relatively rich finds assemblage reveals the presence of exchange networks with other parts of Britain. The evidence from Meillionydd will be compared to other Iron Age roundhouse settlements and hillforts within the region and further afield, in order to think more critically about the nature of Iron Age settlement traditions and social change.