The Carneddau range is an area of great historic interest. The area is alive with hut circles, cairns and remnants of ancient field systems. Over 97 scheduled monuments and 4000 archaeological sites are recorded in this incredible landscape.
The Carneddau (Welsh for cairns) take their name from the ancient cairns located on its peaks and ridges. They are human-made heaps of stones, used as burial grounds or ceremonial locations. There are over 150 sites identified in the area. Those discovered on the highest peaks are compared to ceremonial sites in places like Mongolia and Nepal. These cairns would have been symbolically important and have been known to have been decorated with colourful banners and animal bones to help mark their importance. Potentially visited to celebrate the spirits of ancestors, they were prominent places, with distant views and could often be visible from afar.
Many people walk through the mountains, moving stones as they go to create shelters and new cairns, unaware of the significance of what’s around them. Part of the Carneddau Landscape Partnership project’s aim is to make people aware of this valuable archaeology and to help better protect these important discoveries.
