Carn Caca

Nearest town:
Neath (7km WSW)
OS reference:
SN822007
OS sheet:
170
Latitude:
51° 41' 31.78 N
Longitude:
3° 42' 16.18 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The relationship of Bronze Age monuments to water – in all its forms – perhaps poses a rhetorical question. However I’m becoming more and more accustomed to finding them in proximity to river sources, springs and other water features.

Here the Melin Court Brook cascades to meet the Afon Nedd below, the latter sourced upon the saddle between Fan Gyhirych and Fan Nedd in Fforest Ffawr (both peaks bearing Bronze Age cairns). The hill rising approx due south of these falls, Carn Caca, is crowned by at least two certain monuments, one with exposed cist. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jan 3, 2013
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The ‘other’ cairn. Note the restricted view toward the Neath Valley.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The only other cairn (of the trio depicted upon the OS map) that I could positively identify. Much smaller than the ring-cairn.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The skyline peak is Craig-y-Llyn, the very same that shelters the famous Llyn Fawr, source of that wondrous collection of Bronze/Early Iron Age artefacts.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Note fallen orthostat of outer ring in the foreground.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Orthostat of outer ring surrounding the cairn.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The featured small upright would appear to have formed part of an inner ring. All the outer ring orthostats have fallen.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

That’s more like it – the ring cairn showing central cist.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011
Image of Carn Caca (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

I must admit I found the monuments upon the western flank of Carn Caca a bugger to locate... for example these stones looked very suspiciously ‘artificial’ to me. However further investigation revealed no discernible arc... the actual cairns are behind the camera, uphill through a gap in a dry stone wall. In other words the Bronze Age people didn’t want to take advantage of this rather fine view of the Neath Valley, setting their monuments back from escarpment edge. Incidentally the town is the industrial Resolfen, the distant peaks (skyline right) those of Fforest Fawr and Pen-y-Fan/Corn Du.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2011

Articles

Miscellaneous

Carn Caca
Cairn(s)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 11, 2011

Ring cairn and two other cairns on Carn Caca. Coflein descriptions:

Carn Caca ring cairn (SN82240079)

An irregular ‘cairn circle’ in which c.20 slabs stand, or stood, about a roughly oval area, 11.9m by 10.7m, with traces of a slight bank, 1.5m wide and thought to be kerbed, without. The slabs’ outward lean has been taken to be an original feature, and a hollow on the E may commemorate the excavation of a damaged cist.

Carn Caca cairns (SN82340073)

Two cairns, 75m apart, upon Carn Caca: I – at SN82300073 (Ggat Prn00562W), 9.1m in diameter and 0.4m high. Several recumbent slabs lie about its circumference and a rifled cist is at its centre; II – at SN82380072 (Ggat Prn00563W), 4.0m in diameter and 0.3m high.

Sites within 20km of Carn Caca

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