(Mound dimensions in metres) height=from 0.20m to 4.5m / diametre=from 2.5m to 50m. See also ii)

Over 2,000 of these monuments were surveyed. Listing them all would take up rather a lot of space.

Some of these ancient monuments are also well known, especially by characteristic names such as Carnedd Wen (SH 551609), Troed y Rhiw (ST 015929), Bryn Beddau (SH 510597), Crug Las (SN 388516), Pant Glas (SO 185561), Glyncymer (SS 862954), Riley’s Tumulus (SS 851772). As with the previous category, some round cairns & barrows were excavated more than once – as far as one can tell, considering that such activities were not usually recorded. In fact, it is probable that most sites were excavated several times unbeknown to anyone. Round cairns & barrows overlapped in time with the Late Neolithic burial architecture. The latter covered only inhumations (predominantly extended) until it was replaced altogether. In the early stages of this process, round cairns & barrows also contained inhumations (predominantly crouched). Later on in the Bronze Age, cremation was practiced virtually exclusively. The vast majority of Bronze Age burial mounds in Wales were piles of stones, i.e. cairns (c.52%). Round barrows, on the other hand, were mounds of earth, clay &/or sods (c.33%) which were recorded relatively rarely. Most were probably leveled to the ground by later agricultural activities (as were many of the stone cairns) before records could be made; denuded sites & moundless cists amount to c.15%. Round cairns & barrows occurred in large numbers right across the whole of inland Wales , in detectable stages of hinterland expansion (see Roese, 1981). Their mounds vary from simple heaps of material to those with very complicated internal structures. Beaker burials, typical of the interface between the Neolithic and Bronze Age, were already to be found further inland than their predecessors, while cremation burials were the predominant method of burial in the very heart of Wales. Their topographical location or siting has caused some controversy in the past. However, it is now generally accepted that these monuments were built in any location, from hill tops to valley bottoms and that their occurrence was not limited to any topographically specific type of site.