The bodies, believed to belong to an early Christian community, are thought to date back to the 6th century and were buried in the cemetery of an old chapel in Wales. They are well preserved as they were buried in the sand on what was once a medieval trading post with Ireland.
Excavations continue at Whitesands Bay, a Blue Flag beach near the town of St David’s, where St Patrick’s chapel is located.
The skeletons were exposed by natural erosion and storms, just below the surface of the dunes where the chapel’s cemetery once stood. They are currently guarded by experts at the University of Sheffield.
According to Jenna Smith, who led the excavation, the preservation of the bones was ‘absolutely incredible’ because the skeletons were submerged in the sand. “We’ve had over 90 burials in the last three weeks,” Smith said.
‘It’s really important that we do this because it gives that snapshot that we normally don’t get in Wales. Bone doesn’t normally exist.” And the real reason we’re here is because we’re here to stop bones and burials from being eroded into the sea.”
An analysis by the University of Sheffield revealed that the tombs, which are a mix of men, women and children of all ages, are dated between the 6th and 11th centuries.
All tombs were aligned with the head westward and without any objects, in accordance with early Christian burial customs.
Some of the skeletons were found in chests – tombs lined with stone slabs and capped, which was a common burial tradition in early medieval western Britain.
In some children’s graves, white quartz pebbles were found on the coffins.
Whitesands Bay has been the focus of archaeologists since the early 1920s because of St Patrick’s Chapel and its associated cemetery.
Little is known about the chapel, the only historical reference comes from George Owen’s Description of Pembrokeshire of 1603.
‘Capel Patrick is just west of St Davids and is situated as close as possible to his country, Ireland. It is now completely decayed.’ Although the cemetery is thought to have been in use since the 6th century, the chapel is reported to have been built in the 11th century and decayed in the 16th century.
The remains of the building were first excavated in 1924 when a cross-carved stone was found.
As for the burial site, erosion continued to affect the area so badly that human remains were periodically exposed from the sand before the burials were finally excavated in 1970.
There was an attempt by the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority to protect the burial site in 2004 when large boulders were placed in the dunes to slow erosion.
However, stormy weather in 2014 broke off the rocks and revealed more burials, which led to a large-scale salvage excavation by the Dyfed Archaeological Trust, followed by two more seasons of excavation in 2015 and 2016.
By 2016, efforts had uncovered more than 100 burials, but more found in six weeks of excavation brought the total to about 200.
The Dyfed Archaeological Trust said “a substantial amount of evidence still remains for the excavation”, including “an interesting stone structure that predates the burials.”
The excavations at Whitesands Beach will be kept in the National Museum of Wales.
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