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Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns is a prehistoric cairnfield located in Wales and protected by Cadw. The monument comprises a scatter of round stone cairns distributed across upland terrain, typical of Bronze Age burial and ritual monuments found across Welsh moorlands. Such cairnfields served communities across several centuries, with individual cairns marking burials or serving ceremonial functions within the landscape.
The site sits upon bedrock of the South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation, Westphalian in age, comprising mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete. This underlying geology would have shaped both the availability of stone for cairn construction and the character of the surrounding landscape that early Bronze Age populations inhabited and used. The ferricrete and ironstone deposits reflect the industrial potential of the South Wales coalfield, though the cairns themselves predate any such exploitation by thousands of years.
The cairns remain a significant record of prehistoric settlement and funerary practice in the South Wales uplands. Their distribution across this location provides evidence of how Bronze Age communities organised their use of high ground, cemetery placement and territorial markers. The monument is formally recorded and protected as part of Wales's archaeological heritage.
Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference GM272. View the official record →
Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns is a prehistoric cairnfield located in Wales and protected by Cadw. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Cadw under reference GM272.
Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns dates from the prehistoric period, and is classified as a cairnfield. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is GM272.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Prehistoric Rock Art on Mynydd Eglwysilan Common (8.3 km), Carneddi Llwydion (8.4 km), Cairnfield on Mynydd Eglwysilan (8.4 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Cefn Merthyr Round Cairns stands on South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation, bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.