PREHISTORIC HEARTHS ON THE COAST OF 



SOUTH WALES. 



Bv ARTHUR L. LEACH. I'.G.S. 



In 1906 Messrs T. C. Cantrill and O. T. Jones, of commonly on the North and South Downs in the 

 the Geological Survey, in drawing attention* to vicinity of prehistoric settlements, are known 



familiarly as "pot-boilers"' and easily mav be 

 recognised by the innumerable tiny cracks 

 forming a close network on their calcined 

 surfaces. These cracks are due to repeated 

 expansion and rapid contraction of the stone 

 when it was used as a " pot-boiler " by being 

 first heated strongly and then dropped into a 

 cooking-pot containing water. " Pot-boilers "' 

 may be found scattered over the ground in 

 some localities in association with flint cores 

 and flakes, while not infrequently small cook- 

 ing-pits or tireiilaces are discovered filled with 

 broken potter\-. fragments of bones, charcoal 

 and calcined flints. The Welsh mounds of 

 burnt stones present some features of peculiar 

 interest and, unlike the Downland cooking- 

 places, which sometimes may be definitely 

 assigned to the Neolithic or to the Bronze 

 age, the period of their use remains still a 

 matter of speculation. 



In outward appearance a hearth is usuall\- 

 'o a low mound, overgrown by grass or gorse, 



situated close beside a spring or small stream, 

 and rising but little above the general level of the 

 ground. It may be quite irregular in outline or 

 roughly circular and from si.x feet to fifty feet in 

 diameter : occasionally it assumes a crescentic or 

 horseshoe form with the concavity towards the 

 stream. On digging into the mound (or observing 



From a pliclografi, i-y R. H. CItan.lUr 



Figure 473. Hearth above the shore at Swanlake, Pembrokeshire, 



in which .1 flint flakt w.is found amidst the burnt stones. The photogr.-iph shews also 

 the channel of a small stream iunncuialcly heside tlie hearth. 



certain heaps of burnt stones, which thev had dis- 

 covered chiefly in the inland parts of Pembrokeshire 

 and Carmarthenshire, suggested that they were the 

 sites of prehistoric — probabh- Neolithic — cooking- 

 places, and that the stones had been used as 

 " pot-boilers " in some primitive mode of cookery. 

 Since that date many more have been 

 detected by various observ'ers, and in a 

 recent paper by the same authors, on 

 " Prehistoric Cooking - places in South 

 Wales" (Arcluicologia Canibrciisis, June, 

 1911), two hundred and seventy-one hearths 

 are enumerated, and their probable age and 

 origin are more fully discussed. With the 

 exception of a group of three such hearths 

 upon the Pembrokeshire coast described^ 

 by me (see t'lgure 473) and included in the 

 above list, none of the recorded examples are 

 situated immediately on the coast-line. 

 During the month of August, 1911, I noted 

 three additional hearths near the shore : 

 they present, particularly in one case, as 

 will be seen, some features of unusual 

 interest which may help to throw light on 

 the problem of the age of these curious 

 mounds of burnt stones. 



In the chalk districts of south-eastern 

 England the burnt flints, which occur 



a photograph 



Figure 474. Hearth at Marros, Carmarthenshire. 



irnt stones are overlapped ( 

 which have been thro 



Note on the Discovery of Prehistoric Hearths in South Wales." Arch. Camb., 1906, page 17. 

 " Note on the Discovery of Prehistoric Hearths at Swanlake." Arch. Camb., 1909, page 243. 



