Neolithic tomb - Gower, Wales. Great Britain.
N 51° 35.299 W 004° 06.762
30U E 422914 N 5715837
Parc Cwm long cairn (Welsh: carn hir Parc Cwm), also known as Parc le Breos burial chamber (siambr gladdu Parc le Breos). A partly restored Neolithic chambered tomb, built around 3,850 years BC. Gower, Swansea. South Wales.
Waymark Code: WMHV4T
Location: South Wales, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/14/2013
Views: 3
"The wedge shaped cairn measures nearly 20 metres in length and was built of drystone walling that enclosed rocks and cobbles with a deep horned forecourt at its southern end that leads to a 5 metre gallery with a pair of chambers on either side. These chambers were found to contain the remains of around 24 bodies as well as pottery sherds and animal bones (which predate the tomb and could have come from the nearby caves) and would originally have been covered with either one large or several smaller capstones - these stones have now disappeared. The site dates from the Neolithic, around 3800BC, and was first investigated in 1859 and again in the early 1960's when it was partly restored." Text Source:
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"Parc Cwm long cairn (Welsh: carn hir Parc Cwm), also known as Parc le Breos burial chamber (siambr gladdu Parc le Breos), is a partly restored Neolithic chambered tomb, identified in 1937 as a Severn-Cotswold type of chambered long barrow. The cromlech, a megalithic burial chamber, was built around 5850 years before present (BP), during the early Neolithic. It is about seven ½ miles (12 km) west south–west of Swansea, Wales, in what is now known as Coed y Parc Cwm at Parc le Breos, on the Gower Peninsula.
A trapezoidal cairn of rubble – the upper part of the cromlech and its earth covering now removed – about 72 feet (22 m) long by 43 feet (13 m) (at its widest), is revetted by a low dry-stone wall. A bell-shaped, south-facing forecourt, formed by the wall, leads to a central passageway lined with limestone slabs set on end. Human remains had been placed in the two pairs of stone chambers that lead from the passageway. Corpses may have been placed in nearby caves until they decomposed, when the bones were moved to the tomb.
The cromlech was discovered in 1869 by workmen digging for road stone. An excavation later that year revealed human bones (now known to have belonged to at least 40 people), animal remains, and Neolithic pottery. Samples from the site show the tomb to have been in use for between 300 and 800 years. North-West European lifestyles changed around 6000 BP, from the nomadic lives of the hunter-gatherer, to a settled life of agricultural farming: the Neolithic Revolution. However, analysis of the human remains found at Parc Cwm long cairn show the people interred in the cromlech continued to be either hunter-gatherers or herders, rather than agricultural farmers." Text Source: (
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