CIfA Cymru/Wales Group talks and AGM

Description

The CIfA Cymru/Wales Group invites you to join us for an afternoon featuring 3 interesting talks on recent work on important archaeological sites in South Wales from 14:00 until 17:00 on Thursday 11 December 2025.

Approximate agenda 

• 14:00 – 14:05:  Welcome
• 14:05 – 14:30 Cymru/Wales Group AGM
• 14:30 – 15:15  New Pieces Enclosure: An Elite Post-Roman Settlement in the Welsh Marches, Andy Seaman
• 15:15 – 15:25 Break
• 15:25 – 16:10 Finding the Bronze Age in Unexpected Places: Excavations in Trelai Park, Cardiff, Olly Davis 
• 16:10 – 16:55 Archaeological excavations and community projects across the copperworks sites in in Swansea talk by Rhys Morgan
• 16:55 – 17:00: Closing Remarks & Thank You

Talks to include:

New Pieces Enclosure: An Elite Post-Roman Settlement in the Welsh Marches, Andy Seaman

In this talk I will present some preliminary results from the Leverhulme-funded Making the March: Contesting Lands in the Early Medieval frontier project focusing an important high-status settlement in the Breidden Hills known as New Pieces.  I will consider results emerging from on-going analysis of previously unpublished excavations undertaken between 1996 and 2000, and some very preliminary results from a new programme fieldwork undertaken in summer 2025.

Andy is a Reader in Early Medieval Archaeology at Cardiff University. He currently leads or co-leads five major projects focused on late antique and early medieval Wales and western Britain, including Leverhulme-funded Hidden Kingdoms: the South-West of Britain in Late Antiquity and AHRC-funded Ecologies of Governance in the First Millennium AD: Rulership, Inequality, and Environment.

Finding the Bronze Age in Unexpected Places: Excavations in Trelai Park, Cardiff, Olly Davis

In 2022 archaeologists from Cardiff University's 'CAER Heritage' team discovered a Middle Bronze Age rectilinear enclosure in Trelai Park, south-western Cardiff, while investigating the environs of Caerau Hillfort. The enclosure is significant for two reasons. First, it is morphologically similar to South Lodge and Down Farm, a type of settlement common in southern England but previously unknown in south Wales. Second, excavations over the last four years have revealed a roundhouse within the interior which possessed in situ floor deposits. This talk provides an update from those excavations which have revealed a complex of settlement and funerary features, plus evidence of significant later, Roman, activity.

Dr Olly Davis is Head of Archaeology and Conservation at Cardiff University. He is the Director of CAER Heritage, a major community heritage project focussed in west Cardiff. 

Archaeological excavations and community projects across the copperworks sites in in Swansea talk by Rhys Morgan

At their peak in the mid-19th century, the Hafod and Morfa Copperworks were two of the largest copperworks in Swansea, employing over 1,000 people and producing a huge proportion of the world’s copper and yellow metal. The two works were amalgamated in 1924 and continued to produce plate and sheet copper.  In 1980, the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks was closed, by which time it was the last operating copper plate mill in the UK. Fast forward 40 years and the few surviving buildings are in the process of being stabilised and renovated, with a new landmark visitor attraction centred on Penderyn Whisky’s new distillery and visitor centre housed within the old Morfa Powerhouse and Rolling Mill buildings. During the course of the last seven years, Black Mountains Archaeology has undertaken extensive archaeological excavations and community projects across the copperworks site, which have revealed the buried remains of copperworks buildings, floors, furnaces and flues. This talk will outline the results of our investigations and will summarise the finds that were collected.

Rhys Morgan works as a project officer for Black Mountains Archaeology Ltd and is based in South Wales, UK. After completing his PhD at the University of Southampton in 2021, under the supervision of Andrew Meirion Jones, Rhys began working full-time in commercial archaeology. During this time, he has been involved in several significant projects across South Wales, including the Lower Swansea Valley Regeneration Project, which involved several excavations of the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks, and the five-year conservation programme at Tintern Abbey. Rhys is also a fluent Welsh speaker.

Event pricing

This event is free for all CIfA members to attend. There is a fee of £5 for all non-members of CIfA.

Contact us
If you have any questions at all or require any assistance in registering or accessing this event please contact us: groups@archaeologists.net