Welsh Journals

Further to the north-west on another ridge is a third fort, Llwyn du, an elongated oval of 1 8 ha., roughly bisected by a cross-rampart, and another small fort, Carreg Cegyn, is recorded as a little further away to the south-cast. These four form a compact group, which can be enclosed by an ellipse of axes 3 km. and 1 5 km. The Tywi runs 2 km. away to the north, and southwards the ground rises to the Black Mountains. The immediate neighbourhood of Carn Goch would seem to have had some particular attraction for settlement at this time, for outside this group the next nearest on the same side of the river are 9 km. to the south-west and 14 km. to the north-east; to the north there are three, all about 7 km. away. The locations of these forts, and relevant references, are given in the Table. TABLE. Hillforts near Carn Goch Name G.R. (all SN) HNS Inv. No. Cam Goch, Gaer Fawr 690 242 (a) 1, p. 58 427 Carn Goch, Gaer Fach 685 242 (a) 4, p. 58 427 Llwyn-du 678 244 (b) 4, p. 59 Carreg Cegyn 672 233 Waun y Castell 620 192 (c) 3, p. 60 Maes y Castell 631 279 (c) 2, p. 60 255 Y Fan 675 315 (c) 1, p. 60 Cwm-bran 704 313 (g) 2, p. 65 Ynys-y-bordau 793 347 (g) 1, 65 284 The references in the column headed HNS are to the list of hillforts in the county by Dr. H. N. Savory in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XVI, p. 54 ff. The authority for Carreg Cegyn is the Ordnance Survey Map of Southern Britain in the Iron Age. All except Maes y Castell appear to be univallate. ASSOCIATED STRUCTURES Before describing the ramparts of the two hillforts it is convenient to deal with the other structures which occur on the site; their relation to the hillforts is uncertain, and their apparent association may well be fortuitous. (a) The Summit Cairn This is a mass of rubble some 3 m. high piled up on a natural crag which accen- tuates its apparent height when viewed from the north-east. It is completely ruinous, showing no trace of revetment or internal structures. In plan it is elongated, 55 m. by 20 m., so that in a literal sense it is a Long Cairn, but the implication of Neolithic associations carried by this term may well be misleading. The siting of the Carn Goch cairn is very uncharacteristic for a Neolithic Long Cairn, and its condition is such that one would expect some traces of megalithic facade or internal structures to appear, if any exist. In brief, the structure is almost certainly a burial cairn and may belong either to the Bronze Age or to the Neolithic period; the former seems rather more probable, but in either case it is anomalous.