I think I have got to the bottom of the mystery about the request to Cadw for the designation of Rhosyfelin as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. I have received a couple of very helpful letters from Cadw, and it seems that something like this has happened.
Somebody (we don't know who) asked the Director of Cadw and the Head of Historic Environment to visit the dig site and take a look at it -- which they did, presumably during the September dig.
Subsequently the Cadw archaeological inspectorate was asked to give a considered view on whether the site met the criteria for ancient monument scheduling. Presumably they must have visited as well. However, says the letter, "we were unable to do so (ie advise positively) in the absence of archaeological reports or other supporting evidence. The site therefore remains on our radar for consideration."
The letter also says that no formal request has been received from any external party for scheduling -- and we must accept that statement in good faith.
There are still some interesting questions that might be asked about the timescale and the sequence of events, and I still suspect some "informal involvement" from the National Park. But I'll now let this matter rest, content in the knowledge that there is no great conspiracy going on, and that Cadw will not do anything precipitate. What everybody (including Cadw) now wants, it seems, is some written reporting and some hard evidence.......
So thanks are due to Cadw for keeping us in the picture on this.
Let us trust that, following Brian's pressing for Rhosyfelin to be made a Regionally Important Geodiversity Site [RIGS], the powers - that - be will agree to this, a far more appropriate and necessary designation based upon existing evidence.
ReplyDeleteSee Brian's Post on this as recently as September 2014.
Brian,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. You raising this issue may have helped here ... keep raising these issues.
Kostas
In the absence of definitive, significantly early Carbon 14 dating evidence, there is no justification for scheduling as an Ancient Monument.
ReplyDeleteAnd WHY are we being required to pass through the CAPCHA hoops again?
It looks as if Cadw and the other officers who look after scheduling are similarly concerned. Indeed we do need those C214 dates on the record -- and we also need to get some evidence in support of these references to the "Bronze Age layer" at Rhosyfelin which is referred to as if it is an established fact. I recall asking George on this blog to provide us with the evidence upon which that label is based -- and have been met with a thunderous silence from him and everybody else. Wonder why?
ReplyDeleteA reminder of what George said on Sept 30th: "...in the 2013 season when I was excavating at Rhosyfelin, I found a Mesolithic bladelet within the Bronze Age hillwash." Bronze Age hillwash? I think we might just suggest that the Mesolithic bladelet was actually in a Mesolithic layer......... which is exactly where we might expect to find it. And we might also just suggest that everything beneath it is earler Mesolithic and Palaeolithic, and not Neolithic as the quarry hunters would have us believe. Perfectly simple.
ReplyDelete