The Significance of Stones: Ritual Reuse of Hearthstones and Monuments in Early Medieval Wales

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ritual Closure: A Global Perspective" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Early medieval Wales was a fragmented political landscape, and the threat of incomers from Ireland and Scotland led to an increased sense of urgency amongst the Welsh uchelwyr (elites) to retain their hold on the land. To that end, ancient standing stone monuments were given secondary function as property boundary stones, lending legitimacy to land claims. Standing stones were also reused as sites for elite burial, suggesting connections to a mythic past. These elements of ritual reuse gave the uchelwyr deeper attachments to their lands, providing a perceived continuity built on assumed relationships with the past. This paper explores how these practices may have developed out of the ritual significance of hearthstones. The focus of household rituals of death and rebirth and apotropaic efforts to protect the residents of the home, hearthstones also offered evidence of land rights to a nomadic people; generations after departure, returning descendants had the right to claim ownership provided their ancestors’ hearthstone remained, even in places where the surrounding structure was in ruin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Ritual Closure: A Global Perspective

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51432