LOST UNDER SANDS
Dig for Dark Ages settlement
RESEARCHERS are hoping to uncover a lost medieval village buried in sand on Anglesey.
Archaeologists believe the Newborough Warren area has been inhabited since Roman times and have found suggestions nearby of a small medieval village.
They believe it may date back to the Dark Ages, the centuries after the Romans left and from when there are few historical records.
Researchers hope to uncover the village as part of a multi-million pound European research project investigating the risks of climate change to the coastal landscapes of Wales and Ireland.
The project, launched yesterday, will focus on the headlands and islands around the Llŷn Peninsula, Pembrokeshire, Cardigan Bay, and sites along the south and east coast of Ireland.
As well as the village at Newborough Warren, they will also be hoping to uncover ancient shipwrecks.
Cutting-edge technologies will be used to analyse coastal and island archaeology and maritime heritage sites most affected by climate change, coastal erosion, storms and rising sea levels.
At Newborough Warren, a dig in 2015 by Gwynedd Archaeological Trust uncovered a house buried in sand dunes near the Menai Strait.
The house was found as part of investigations into a site researchers are calling Rhuddgaer.
The project is being funded by €4.1m from the EU’s Ireland-Wales programme.
Dr Toby Driver, a senior investigator at the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments Wales, said: “Our fellow researchers from Ireland will use a specially-equipped boat to carry out multi-beam surveys under the sea.
“Thanks to cutting-edge marine mapping, we’ll be able to take highresolution images of the wrecks that foundered on undersea locations such as Sarn Badrig near Harlech.
“Some will have been there for up to four centuries and it will be the first time many of them will ever have been seen under water.
“We’ll also be looking at Newborough Warren on Anglesey where a whole village is said to have been buried in sand hundreds of years ago.
“Other areas include the Skerries, Stackpole, and the islands of Pembrokeshire as well as Irish coastal sites.”
The project is called Cherish (Climate, Heritage and Environments of Reefs, Islands and Headlands).
And it is being led by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) in collaboration with Aberystwyth University.
Sand dunes at Ynyslas near Borth will be one of the areas looked a as well as Stackpole in Pembrokeshire.
Aberystwyth University will look at the development of highresolution records of environmental change from sedimentary and historical records led by Dr Sarah Davies from its geography and earth sciences department.
“Sediments in coastal peat deposits, such as those at Cors Fochno (Borth Bog), as well as those in lagoons and dune systems, provide a detailed record of past climatic change,” she said.
“We’re particularly interested in how storm activity has varied over the last few thousand years and the lessons we can learn today from history.
“Over historical timescales, documentary records can also provide valuable information about the changing nature of storm activity – and how communities coped with living in dynamic coastal environments.”
The project will support future strategies on climate change by providing a deeper understanding of longerterm changes to Wales and Ireland’s heritage and coastal environments.
The recent huge storms and gale force winds have stripped away much of the sand from stretches of the beach between Borth and Ynyslas on the west Wales coast north of Aberystwyth.
Public events will be held to share information about the findings and training sessions will be arranged to support development of tourism opportunities.