The Story of Meillionydd

On the western lower slope of Mynydd Rhiw lies the hilltop enclosure of Meillionydd: a settlement of roundhouses surrounded by an embanked double ringwork enclosure, which dates to the Early and Middle Iron Age. While hillforts are a common type of settlement in Iron Age Wales, the double ringwork enclosures are a regionalised type concentrated on the western end of the Llŷn peninsula. Nine or possibly ten of the thirteen known double ringwork enclosures in northwest Wales are located here. Aside from Meillionydd, only one of these sites has been excavated on Pen Llŷn: Castell Odo near Aberdaron, which was excavated in the late 1950s by Leslie Alcock.

The site was the focus of extensive excavations between 2010-2017, led by Raimund Karl, Katherina Möller and Kate Waddington from Bangor University. The site was chosen because of its proximity to Castell Odo, which allowed us to compare the two sites, as well as the excellent results of a geophysical survey carried out by George Smith and David Hopewell from Gwynedd Archaeological Trust in 2007.

Our excavations aimed to explore the types of communities occupying sites like this and the kinds of activities which were carried out there, as well as to refine the chronological development of these distinctive enclosures. Current research has focussed on the Eastern Area Excavations (excavation seasons 2010-2014), which examined the boundaries either side of the eastern entranceway, as well as their associated roundhouses, in a conjoined area measuring c. 800m². This research has involved the specialist analyses of the object assemblages, 23 radiocarbon dates, and the charred plant remains from the soil samples.

A total area of c. 2125 square meters has so far been excavated at Meillionydd. This included trenches which examined the eastern entrance-passage and the different phases of enclosure boundaries, as well as the remains of overlapping timber- and stone-built roundhouses found inside the interior, alongside some grain storage structures. The evidence is typical for Iron Age hillforts, and it demonstrates how important these places were to communities living here in the first millennium BC. They were settlements and places for food storage, but they were also the centres of community life, where the wider population would gather episodically for agricultural festivals, ceremonies, and political meetings.

What is interesting about Meillionydd is that it has a deep history stretching back to the Early Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age, well before the development of the Iron Age enclosure, but these phases are not well understood. They hint at a much earlier importance of this hilltop location (and this early history may well have enhanced the importance of Meillionydd to Iron Age groups).

George Smith’s recent analyses of the stone objects have helped to bring this earlier history of Meillionydd to light. The objects include an Early Neolithic axe roughout made from Mynydd Rhiw stone which was being quarried on the top of the hill in the fourth millennium BC, during the time of the first farming communities in Britain. It is interesting that this Neolithic object was reused by the Iron Age occupants as part of the cobbled surface running through the entrance-passage of the hilltop enclosure.

Other Early Neolithic blades were also found at Meillionydd – this one here is identical to one found in the excavations of the Mynydd Rhiw axe-factory in the 1950s by Chris Houlder. Recent excavations by Steve Burrow (National Museum Wales) revealed that a large proportion of the hilltop was the focus for this stone extraction between around 3700 to 3100 cal. BC. The evidence reveals the presence of a previously unknown (but ephemeral) Early Neolithic settlement at Meillionydd, which has been truncated by the Iron Age activity.

There is also now evidence that the site was reoccupied in the Early Bronze Age as well, during the early part of the second millennium BC. A cluster of pits and postholes in Trench 3, which was sealed beneath an Early Iron Age roundhouse, produced two radiocarbon dates between c. 2000 and 1800 cal. BC. This Early Bronze Age phase of occupation at Meillionydd is also poorly understood but it is probably contemporary with the alignment of Early Bronze Age funerary cairns located on the top of Mynydd Rhiw.

In fact, due to the number of prehistoric monuments on this hill, Mynydd Rhiw may well be the location of a Neolithic and Early Bronze Age ceremonial and funerary complex. As the interactive map to the right shows, the hilltop itself contains a Neolithic axe-factory, two Neolithic chambered tombs, an alignment of five or six Early Bronze Age funerary hilltop cairns and an Early Bronze Age cist-burial further down the slope, as well as two Early Bronze Age standings stones. This earlier prehistoric activity on the hill is significant: by the Iron Age, this place may have been associated with myths and legends which were passed down through story-telling traditions and this would have enhanced the importance of this place to Iron Age communities. This may well be a reason why three double ringwork enclosures were located here in the first millennium BC.

The site was reoccupied just over 1000 years later in the first millennium BC, when a circular-shaped timber hillfort was constructed, measuring around 80-100m in diameter (Phase 2). It is defined by two shallow concentric ditches (which probably functioned as palisade slots), with an eastern entrance-way. On the eastern side of the site, around the entrance-way, there was only one ditch but this was accompanied by a timber fence and a four-post entrance-gatehouse, with a cobbled surface running through the entrance-way. Several timber roundhouses were found within the enclosure. This enclosure entrance-way was enhanced by special entrance-marking deposits, including decayed iron objects and a crucible fragment for melting bronze in the ditch terminals, as well as fine decorated jet ring fragment found on the base of a large posthole in the entrance-gatehouse.

The radiocarbon dating programme and the Bayesian analysis produced by Professor Derek Hamilton revealed that this is an Early Iron Age settlement. The occupation had commenced by 600 or 550 BC, ending around 470 or 450 BC. This shows that this phase was relatively short-lived – and perhaps only occupied for a century (although some of the earlier timber roundhouses have not yet been dated). However, it is unlikely to have commenced much before 600 BC as we have not yet found a single sherd of Late Bronze Age pottery, despite the large area excavations (the five small fragments of presumed pottery have since been reidentified as fired clay used to line features or hearths).

As the Early Iron Age drew to a close, the settlement was monumentalised and rebuilt in stone. The double stone- and earthen-banks were constructed and a new eastern entrance-passage was created which also had a cobbled track-way or road running through it (Phase 3a). Another extraordinary discovery awaited us within one of the large postholes of the Phase 3a entrance gatehouse – an ornate decorated green-blue glass bead. Several stone-walled roundhouses were built in the interior, and often positioned to deliberately overlie earlier timber roundhouses. These new stone-walled roundhouses had thick walls which were faced neatly with stones on the outer and inner faces and filled with a core of soil and smaller stones – many were built just inside the inner face of the inner bank.

A new stone-walled roundhouse was also built as part of the outer bank and located directly next to the outer entrance-way – and the occupants of this building monitored the flow of people, animals and carts into and out of the enclosure. The Bayesian modelling of the radiocarbon dates has also revealed that this is a relatively short-lived hillfort. It was built around 470 cal BC and it ended by 300 cal BC. Most of the roundhouses in this phase lasted around 70 years, although the entrance-roundhouse was probably occupied for longer.

The next phase sees a striking remodelling of the site. The inner bank and entrance-way on the eastern side of the enclosure is flattened and destroyed, and stone roundhouses are built directly on top and within the original entranceway area, effectively blocking it. We originally assumed that this phase ran immediately on from the previous phase, and that it was an attempt of the occupants to increase space within the enclosure. However, the analysis of the radiocarbon dates has revealed that this is not correct. The dating evidence revealed that the earliest house in Phase 3b was constructed sometime after 200 BC. This reveals that there is a short period of abandonment between the end of Phase 3a and the beginning of Phase 3b, lasting around 100 years. The occupation of the enclosure in this final phase is so strikingly different that it makes sense that it was being constructed by a new generation of builders, who had made a decision to return to Meillionydd and renew the settlement. The rest of the roundhouse sequence in this phase hasn’t yet been dated, but it seems likely that occupation continued into the early first millennium AD – dating these final roundhouses will be a focus of future research.

While we have briefly looked at the story of Meillionydd, let us now look at some artefacts that formed part of the daily life of the people of Meillionydd in the form of textile production, food production, decorative objects and other interesting objects.

The artefact assemblage at Meillionydd and other Iron Age settlements in northwest Wales is limited in many ways. Due to the acidic soils, organic components such as butchered animal bones, bone artefacts, and human remains (typical finds on Iron Age settlements) do not usually survive. In addition, the Iron Age in this region is aceramic, which results in an absence of dateable pottery. Instead, we encounter a wide array of stone tools, from hammer stones, to smoothing or grinding stones, to spindlewhorls and a few decorative objects. Charred plant remains collected from soil samples taken during the excavations demonstrate that the people living in Meillionydd mainly grew barley and emmer wheat, with oats and spelt also being occasionally farmed. Their fuel sources came from local mixed deciduous woodland as well as peat and heather.

There is a small selection of fine decorative objects from the Iron Age settlement.

A large post-pit from the Phase 3a entrance-gatehouse produced a jet ring fragment which is too small to be a child’s bracelet and too large to be a finger ring. It was probably a dress fitting or an object worn for suspension.

One of the large postholes of the Phase 3a entrance gatehouse also contained another unusual object. This is a blue-green decorated glass bead which was also found at the very bottom of a post-pit. Elizabeth Foulds has recently carried out a detailed study of this object. Most Iron Age glass beads are blue, and so finding a parallel has proven challenging, due to its unusual mid-green colour.  It is also decorated with an unusual ring-eye motif. Its closest parallel exists in the Middle Iron Age Wetwang Slack burials in eastern Yorkshire.

Three plain blue-glass beads were deposited in an unusual stone-lined pit in the floor of one of the final roundhouses in Phase 3b. This feature contained a range of interesting finds, including two stone spindlewhorls and a fine chert abrader, and analysis of the soils by Nebu George reveal chemical signatures which are consistent with human burials. It therefore seems very likely that this is a cist-burial perhaps placed as a foundation burial during the construction of this house, with the human remains decaying away in the acidic soils.

Spindlewhorls were used as weight at the bottom of a spindle when spinning yarn by hand. They were made from various material such as stone, clay, lead, and antler. The examples we found at Meillionydd are stone or lead spindlewhorls. When comparing the stone spindlewhorls to the lead ones it is noticeable that the weight is very similar despite the lead spindle whorls being significantly smaller in size. While spindlewhorls can be decorated, most of the ones found at Meillionydd were undecorated. The only exception is a stone spindle whorl decorated with lines which was found in 2016.

Lead spindlewhorls were also found at Meillionydd, in the upper-most layers of the site. There are a small number of lead spindlewhorls which have been found on Romano-British roundhouses on Anglesey. It seems likely that the two from Meillionydd belong to this period.

Rubbing or smoothing stones usually have a round shape and fit well into the palm of the hand. They were used to work hides and to felt wool. The constant use leads to one or more sides being worn down, leaving the surface in that particular area smooth and polished. The edges of many of the smoothing stones from Meillionydd are often ground down and used in other ways, such as light hammers or grinders. These tools were multi-functional.

A range of objects relating to food production were found at Meillionydd. They include quern-stones and upper quern-stone rubbers for grinding grain and other food-stuffs, as well as pestles (bevelled pebbles) for grinding other substances. Cooking pits were found in some of the roundhouses.

Not many saddle quern-stones (for grinding grain) were found at Meillionydd. These objects were intentionally removed from the roundhouses when they were abandoned. Only two quern-stones have been found. The one pictured on the right was actually found with the large rubbing stone on top!

The most common finds on site are stone tools. These come in various shapes and sizes, depending on the task they were used for. However, rather than having been worked into the required shape, they are all natural stones that were chosen because their shape was suitable for the task: they have wear marks on their surfaces which tell archaeologists how they were used.

A selection of stones used as lamps and possibly as mortars were found in the settlement. These are stones which have one face which has been pecked away by a hammer stone in order to create a bowl. The lamp (below) is a fine example - the bowl would have held animal fat and on the rim would be a natural fibre twine (twisted grasses) which soaks up the fat and burns well (David Chapman pers comm).

For more 3D models of objects from Meillionydd please see our sketchfab account:  https://sketchfab.com/BangorArchObjects/collections/meillionydd-artefacts-cc6378c5e82c4cbb828cfc078d846f48 

If you would like to explore the spectacular archaeology of the stone-walled hillfort of Tre'r Ceiri, please see our 360-degree virtual tour:  https://www.ecomuseumlive.eu/tre-r-ceiri-virtual-tour