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Description
Lede
Carn Wnda (Garnwnda) earth-fast chambered tomb, located near the village of Llanwnda, approximately 4 kilometres northwest of Fishguard, is just one of many prehistoric sites located along the Pembrokeshire coast.
Story
Set high up in the Pencaer peninsula to the east of Strumble Head, Carn Wnda is one of six surviving prehistoric chambered tombs located along this headland. To the east of Carn Wnda are the megalithic sites of Parc y Cromlech (Penrhiw), and the Garn Wen cemetery, which today incorporates the visible remains of three separate tombs. To the west lies the tomb of Garn Gilfach. Gary Jones took the Ports, Past and Present team to visit this 5000-year-old monument and explore the ancient landscape that surrounds it.
Carn Wnda is classified as an ‘earth-fast’ chambered monument, in that it is comprised of a large stone slab or capstone propped up by a single stone upright, with the southern end of the capstone resting on the earth, thus forming a chamber. The chamber encloses a deep, rock-cut depression and was most likely never covered by a mound.
Richard Fenton's antiquarian investigation of the chamber in the nineteenth century uncovered evidence of pottery, ash and fragments of burnt bone, suggesting that it once contained a burial. It is possible that, in addition to having a funerary function, monuments like Carn Wnda may well have been used for a variety of purposes, such as seasonal gatherings or markers of astronomical events. Nevertheless, based on its form, orientation and location in the landscape, George Nash proposes that, akin to its neighbouring tombs, Carn Wnda was primarily a place of burial or ritual mortuary activity.
Similar to other prehistoric chambered tombs, such as portal dolmens like the well-known example at Pentre Ifan, Carn Wnda was probably constructed during the Neolithic Period (c. 4000-2500 BC). However, while portal dolmens tend to be early Neolithic in date (c. 4000- 3300 BC), earth-fast tombs are of a different building tradition thought to date to the late Neolithic (c. 3000-2500 BC).
Today, Carn Wnda sits peacefully in its beautiful landscape setting as a reminder of the past peoples who made their life in this area 5000 years ago or more.
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