TY - CHAP

T1 - Emerging settlement monumentality in north Wales during the late Bronze and Iron Age

T2 - The case of Meillionydd

AU - Karl, Raimund

PY - 2016/8/31

Y1 - 2016/8/31

N2 - In this paper, I outline the development of the 1st millennium BC settlement at Meillionydd near Rhiw on the Llŷn peninsula in northwest Wales, which evolved from an unenclosed cluster of roundhouses into a double ringwork enclosure embanked by two concentric drystone-faced earthen banks before being slighted and nearly completely flattened in what appears to be a rather labour intensive ‘closure’ rite. I then try to interpret the meaning associated with this process of enclosure and abandonment, and what it might tell us about the beginnings of a process of social evolution that turned the mostly egalitarian, kinship-based societies of the beginning of the 1st millennium BC into the highly hierarchised, aristocratic societies of the Welsh Middle Ages.

AB - In this paper, I outline the development of the 1st millennium BC settlement at Meillionydd near Rhiw on the Llŷn peninsula in northwest Wales, which evolved from an unenclosed cluster of roundhouses into a double ringwork enclosure embanked by two concentric drystone-faced earthen banks before being slighted and nearly completely flattened in what appears to be a rather labour intensive ‘closure’ rite. I then try to interpret the meaning associated with this process of enclosure and abandonment, and what it might tell us about the beginnings of a process of social evolution that turned the mostly egalitarian, kinship-based societies of the beginning of the 1st millennium BC into the highly hierarchised, aristocratic societies of the Welsh Middle Ages.

KW - ARCHAEOLOGY

KW - Iron Age

KW - Wales

KW - Settlement

KW - Society

KW - Meillionydd

KW - Excavations

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781785702273

VL - 3

SP - 247

EP - 276

BT - Celtic from the West

PB - Oxbow Books

CY - Oxford

ER -