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Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery is a Bronze Age burial monument comprising a linear arrangement of round barrows situated in Wales. The cemetery represents a typical funerary landscape of the second millennium BC, when communities organised their dead in clusters along natural routeways or topographical features. Such linear arrangements often indicate successive burials by related groups across several generations, creating visible markers of ancestral occupation on the landscape.
The barrows are constructed upon bedrock of Llandovery Rocks, a formation of interbedded sandstone and conglomerate that would have been accessible as stone for cairn building. This local geology influenced both the construction technique and the visual character of the monuments, as builders utilised naturally fractured stone for barrow mounds. The underlying geology also shaped drainage and vegetation patterns that would have marked the cemetery's setting in the prehistoric landscape.
The site is protected as a scheduled monument under Cadw reference CM315. Round barrow cemeteries such as Gelli Dewi Uchaf are valuable archaeological resources that illuminate patterns of settlement, social organisation and burial practice in Bronze Age Wales. The preservation of multiple barrows in linear arrangement offers particular insight into how communities used the same locations for burial across extended periods.
Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference CM315. View the official record →
Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery is a Bronze Age burial monument comprising a linear arrangement of round barrows situated in Wales. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Cadw under reference CM315.
Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery dates from the prehistoric period, and is classified as a round barrow. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery 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 CM315.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Caer Pencarreg (0.9 km), Three Round Cairns SE of Blaen Carreg (4 km), Hirfaen Standing Stone (4.3 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery'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.
Gelli Dewi Uchaf linear round barrow cemetery stands on Llandovery Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Llandovery. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.