Quite a few archaeological studies refer to St. Brides-super-Ely, especially in relation to its Norman history and a prehistoric settlement near present-day St-y-Nill.

Early Ordinance Survey maps show a tumulus, with human remains, discovered in 1872, and a site near Sant-y-Nyll with human remains discovered in 1866.  The earliest remains in the Parish were discovered by Dr. Hubert N. Savory at Sant-y-Nyll.  The dwellings date from the Later Neolithic period (3000-2000 B.C.), and a burial cairn, containing charred bones and pottery, dates from the Early Bronze Age (2000-1500 BC).

In Guide Catalogue of the Bronze Age Collections (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1980), Savory described the Sant-y-Nyll discovery:

The only other Early Bronze Age settlement site represented in the collection was revealed ... by the excavation of the round cairn which overlay part of it.  In this case, however, at Sant-y-Nyll, St. Brides-super-Ely, Glam. (No. 502), the material belongs substantially to the culture represented by Cinerary Urns, and this is in keeping with the type of burial -- a small central pit containing the burnt bones of an adult female and a child -- to cover which a round cairn formed of earth and a casing of rubble, obtained from a rock-cut ditch surrounding the site, had been erected.  Beneath it was an occupation layer containing fragments from a large number of pots of different types, and a considerable quantity of ox and sheep bones (the latter predominating) and a few believed to be of wild board.

This layer had formed over a large number of small and shallow post-holes, cut into the shallow layer of yellow clay which overlay the rock surface, and mostly attributable to the light framework of three oval huts which cannot have been in use at the same time, since the post-holes of two of them overlapped and the third had been built so close to another that it is not likely to have been contemporary.  One of the huts was 4m.50 by 3m.60 and another was 2m.75 by 2m.20 and must have had a wicker-work covering, since the imprint of horizontal withies which had been woven in and out of the uprights was left in the clay subsoil; some of the posts of this hut had been renewed.

The probability is that a settlement existed at Sant-y-Nyll for a considerable time, with huts possibly extending some way beyond the area covered by the cairn, which may have been built while habitation continued on another part of the site.  While the potsherds found in the occupation layer come mainly from Collared-rim Urns, with one or two possible Food-vessel fragments, they include parts of a hemispherical bowl with a vertical, unperforated lug, suggestive of Neolithic tradition, and what look like rim-fragments from undecorated Beakers; so it is possible that this settlement began in Early Bronze Age I and lasted into Early Bronze Age II.

Cavesites have yielded a little occupation material of Early Bronze Age date, notably the Potter's Cave, Caldey, Pemb. but though the large domestic Beaker from here and the sherds of late necked Beakers are of typological interest, they had been redeposited in or just outside the mouth of the cave, and cannot be related to a definite picture of occupation.  (pp. 30-31)

The Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales described the Sant-y-Nyll site in its multi-volume work, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan, Vol. I: Pre-Norman - Part I The Stone and Bronze Ages (Cardiff, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976):

402.  Near Saint-y-Nyll, N.E. of St. Brides-super-Ely, on the summit of a grassy ridge at 60m above O.D.  A circular grass-grown mound about 1.2m in diameter and 0.9m high.  Human remains are recorded on the O.S. map has having been found here in 1872, but of these nothing is known (see however No. 403).  The barrow was partially explored in 1940 by E. J. Mason, and fully excavated in 1958 by H. N. Savory.  It proved to be much ploughed down and disturbed, but had originally consisted of a cairn of stones some 9-10m in diameter, surrounded by a berm(?) and an outer flat-bottomed ditch, 2.8-3.7m wide at the top, 1.5m wide at the bottom and 2.1m deep.  The outer edge of the ditch formed an oval, 21m in diameter from E. to W. and 22.3 m from N. to S.

At the centre of the mound was a post-hole, probably representing the site of a marking-out post.  Underneath it was a shallow circular pit, 0.4m in diameter, capped by a slab of sandstone and a small cairn of stones, and containing the cremated remains of an adult female and a child.  The central part of the mound also covered three systems of post-holes representing oval huts:

(i)  Hut A occupied the actual centre and was 4.6m long by 3.7m wide, defined by a ring of post-holes at average intervals of 1.2m.  Other post-holes may have represented a central line of roof supports on the longer axis of the hut.

(ii)  North-east of the centre and partly overlapping Hut A was Hut B, 2.8m long by 2.3m wide, defined by posts only 0.6m apart and in places by a shallow groove, perhaps the bedding trench of a wall of wickerwork.  Internal post-holes at right-angles to the longer axis suggested a different method of roof support from Hut A, and some of them showed evidence of renewal.

(iii)  Hut C., S. of the centre, was similar in plan and size to Hut B.  The average spacing of the post-holes was 0.9m.

All three huts were associated with an occupation layer containing animal bones, flints and pottery.  There was some evidence, however, that Hut A was later than Hut B and that its framework at least was still in position at the time of the burial and the erection of the cairn.  Of some 500 animal bones found most were of sheep, but ox and wild boar were also well represented; three claws of brown bear were also found.  The flints comprised part of a plan-convex knife and a number of scrapers and flakes.  The pottery included a small number of fragments of hemispherical bowls of secondary neolithic tradition; three pieces of food vessels; and a large number of sherds from urns of overhanging-rim type.  The excavator concluded that the huts underlying the cairn were domestic rather than ceremonial in character; that they belonged to an early-bronze-age settlement which may have extended far beyond the limits of the cairn; and that the erection of the latter was only one incident in the history of the settlement.

For mounds near Saint-y-Nyll house, see Rejected Sites, No. xlv.

403.  An account of 1877 states that 'on the outskirts of the battle-field (of St. Fagans) is a tumulus 25 or 30 ft. in diameter and a few feet in height.  It had been on the site of an extensive cremation; a thick layer of charcoal was intermingled with half charred bones.'  The site of the Battle of St. Fagans is shown on the O.S. Map at ST 106 778.  This description could however be a reference to No. 402.     (pp. 100-101)

Following is Savory's inventory of the artifacts found at Sant-y-Nyll in the Guide:

Collection of pottery, etc., comprising [items] ... found during excavations, in 1940 and 1958, at a ditched round barrow at Sant-y-Nyll, St. Brides-super-Ely, Glam.

• Convex scraper of flint.
• End scraper of flint.
• Worked flint flake.
• Unworked flakes of flint and chert.
• Waisted pebble net-sinker.
• Fragments of a hemispherical bowl with vertical lug, of dark grey ware with fine grits, buff-grey surface, flat rim.  Diam. (mouth) 145.
• Small fragments from rims of relatively fine bowls or beakers of fine grey ware, with grey to pink surfaces some inturned, others out-turned, no decoration.
• Fragment from rim, possibly of a food-vessel with broad, flattened, everted rim, of brown ware, decorated on top with two or three longitudinal cord-impressed lines, diagonal cord-impressed lines on the outer surface, and a cord-impressed horse-shoe motif on the inside of the rim.
• Minute fragment, probably from the internally bevelled rim of a food vessel or urn with a cord-impressed line on top, of coarse buff ware.
• Fragments from an indeterminate number of urns of collared-rim type, including ones with fully developed collars decorated with cord-impressed "maggots" forming horizontal lines, diagonal lines or herring-bone patter, and rims flat or internally bevelled, with cord-impressed diagonal lines, also shoulder-fragments with cord-impressed diagonal lines and fragments of base.
• Burnt human bones.
• Animal bones (ox, sheep, wild boar).
• Snail shells, etc.
• From an occupation layer associated with three oval hut-floors of different dates, represented by intersecting systems of post-holes, covered by a stone-cased barrow erected over a small central pit in which were deposited the burnt bones of an adult (probably female) and a child.  (p. 159)

For more information about prehistoric St. Bride's-super-Ely, Glamorgan, and Wales, consult the following sources:

• Timeline of Welsh History -- Wales on Britannia Web site
• Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales.  An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan.  Cardiff: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976.
• H. N. Savory.  "The Excavation of a Bronze Age Cairn at Sant-y-Nyll, St. Brides-Super-Ely (Glam.)."  Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalists' Society Vol. 89 (1959-60), pp. 9-[36].
• V. E. Nash-Williams.  The Early Christian Monuments of Wales.  Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1950.