MINING SITES IN WALES 301 



between Creswell Crags and Langwith Cave, and he co-operated with me in 

 excavating it during May and June last. This proved to be a workshop site 

 and yielded 160 artifacts. In general facies and in the fauna, this site agrees 

 with the Creswell rock shelters and is contemporary in date therewith. 



' A special exhibition of the whole of the artifacts and a representative 

 selection of animal remains, obtained in the Pin Hole Cave and Mother 

 Grundy's Parlour excavations, was displayed at the British Museum from 

 November 1936 to May 1937. 



'Thanks are extended to Mr. Reginald A. Smith, F.S.A., Keeper of the 

 Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, for providing the facilities 

 and arranging this exhibition. 



' A further grant is earnestly requested by the Committee for the continua- 

 tion of the work in the Boat House Cave and at the Yew Tree rock shelter, 

 Creswell.' 



MINING SITES IN WALES. 



Report of Committee appointed to investigate early mining sites in Wales 

 (Mr. H. J. E. Peake, Chairman ; Mr. Oliver Davies, Secretary ; 

 Prof. V. Gordon Childe, Dr. C. H. Desch, F.R.S., Mr. E. Estyn 

 Evans, Prof. H. J. Fleure, F.R.S., Prof. C. Daryll Forde, Sir 

 Cyril Fox, Dr. Willoughby Gardner, Dr. F. J. North, Mr. V. E. 

 Nash Williams). 



The committee reports that excavations have been carried out in the spring 

 and summer of 1937 on a number of ancient mining-dumps in Wales. 



At Cwm Ystwyth permission to excavate was most kindly granted by 

 Mr. Fermanoglu. The tips below the opencast at the top of the Comet 

 Lode on Copper Hill were sectioned in several places. They were found 

 to have been carefully picked over in ancient times, so that they contained 

 little quartz or galena. On them are a great number of formless stone 

 hammers, usually with marks of pounding at one end, while the sides are 

 finely polished as a result of their use as muUers. They are always slightly 

 broken, perhaps to obtain a good grip. They are made of a local rock, 

 which, however, does not occur commonly, and was clearly sought for its 

 hardness. There was also found part of a saddle quern. These tools 

 differ from those which occur on the tips below the main opencast and on 

 the ' Roman Dumps ' at the Kingsland Lode. There one finds cup-marked 

 stones used for pounding, but hammers do not occur and must have been of 

 iron. The Kingsland Lode is known to have been exploited as late as 1800, 

 and the cup-marked querns may therefore be attributed to the seventeenth or 

 eighteenth century. The age of the workings and tools on the Comet Lode 

 could not be determined, but they are clearly considerably older. At the 

 same time the narrow chisel-cut galleries in the region of the main opencast, 

 though of a type which might be considered Roman in South Europe, 

 probably belong to a more recent period in Wales. It thus appears that the 

 earliest miners at Cwm Ystwyth attacked one rather small outcrop in a large 

 mineralised area. This careless neglect of the greater part of an ore-deposit 

 is characteristic of the users of stone hammers in West Wales. • 



A small test was carried out on the ancient dump at Nantyreira. There 

 were found three thick charcoal strata separated by layers of stones and 

 mud, and overlying a deep bank of stones which rested directly on till. In 



