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Thursday 3 December 2020

Skara Brae and Banc Llwydlos



I hesitate to suggest that we might have a treasure like Skara Brae up here in the uplands of north Pembrokeshire, but there are interesting similarities.  For a start, the size of the two "villages" is similar.  There are similarities in layout too, with a tight cluster of circular and rectangular dwellings and connecting passages designed for mutual protection and community living for up to ten family groups: 



Both of the sites are exposed and windswept.  At both sites, the natural or easiest building material was stone, since we assume a shortage of timber resources.  At Skara Brae using stone was certainly easier, since the stone slabs there were easy to obtain, carry and use.  Rounded erratic boulders, slabs and cobbles at Banc Llwydlos were not all that easy to use, so the "tidy architecture" of Skara Brae could not have been replicated, no matter what the age of the Banc Llwydlos settlement might be.  But at the latter site there was clay available locally -- in the till deposits around the site and in the thin lacustrine deposits in the Brynberian Moor depression just a few hundred metres away -- and this could have been used in walls for packing spaces and windproofing, as well as adding stability.  Making pottery too.....

What we don't have at Banc Llwydos are the sands and the fish.......... but probably quite abundant hunting and gathering resources in a landscape that might have looked something like this.....

"Climax" vegetation on Banc Llwydlos, within a small fenced enclosure designed to keep animals away from a spring-fed water supply point.  This is what the landscape might look like without the sheep and ponies.  Rowan, willow and blackthorn are thriving, as are heather and bilberry.  All of these are suppressed by grazing and burning for gorse clearance.

Let's assume that wattle and daub walls were used at Banc Llwydlos above the bouldery foundations.  What about roof structures?  I know that most of the reconstructions of Skara Brae assume conical and steeply-pitched roofs over the individual houses, supported by pillars and cross members.  But how well founded are those assumptions?  I remember reading many years ago that the multiple huts at sites like Foed Drygarn and Carningli probably did NOT have steeply pitched conical roofs, partly because those would have been very vulnerable in strong winds, and partly because with their large surface areas they would have been very heavy, requiring extra building skill and a lavish use of scarce resources.  It would have made more sense on those hilltop locations to build low domed roofs with pillar supports and a relatively simple structure of interwoven long timbers, with a cover of thatch or skins, or both.  I like this reconstruction of a Skara Brae house, with a very low conical or ridged roof.  Something like this would have suited very well at Banc Llwydlos...........


I'n not terribly bothered how old the Banc Llwydlos settlement turns out to be, but I am quite intrigued by the POSSIBILITY that we have a rather significant site up there on Mynydd Preseli......... 





6 comments:

Tonyh said...

Chysauster in
Cornwall, an iron age/Roman village in cornwall, certainly gets its visitors.

BRIAN JOHN said...

What's the betting that MPP is already developing his storyline that Banc Llwydlos is the "Durrington Walls of the West" -- complete with barbeques, orgies, ale and cattle drovers........ ?? All gathered here in order to build a giant stone circle and then ship it off to Wessex.......

Tonyh said...

You do realise you're probably inspiring him, via what you decide to put into your blog, with storylines? It may be very ironic indeed if this is the case. He may be greatly respectful because he knows of your own prowess in the art of authoring your fantasy/historical series, set, yes,even set in
Preseli!!

You couldn't make it up, brian, if that's how the master pied piper conjures up some of his prevailing notions. You should copyright them....and are you going to make him a character in your next fiction book??

BRIAN JOHN said...

Haha! I hereby claim copyright in the name "Durrington West" and demand a share of the royalties.............

BRIAN JOHN said...

Well, who knows what is going on? My spies tell me that the other day, when all civilised folk were watching Wales v England on the telly, a group of archaeologists was prowling about on the moor, looking at one of the passage graves, claiming affiliation with the SPACES project......... is tribal warfare about to break out?

Tonyh said...

Wouldn't be at all surprised if that is to do with the spaces/ spaced out boys and girls from Bournemouth probably. Incidentally, our mutual Facebook friend
Austin lives there, probably seen him in town or on the beach, behind sun glasses or beach. beach.up