A large open space in in Trelai Park that had been used as a playing field since 1933 yielded a treasure trove of prehistoric artifacts during a 2022 land survey conducted by a local school that was building a sports field in a corner of the park. Upon the archaeological site’s discovery, the Caerau and Ely Rediscovering Heritage Project (CAER), an organization promoting community involvement in archaeological research, began collaborations with Cardiff University to excavate the area.
Archaeologists initially expected the discovery would shed new light on everyday life in the region between the late Iron Age and early Roman Era. To their surprise, unearthed shards from a clay pot dated the site to the Bronze Age, around 1500 B.C.E.
The excavation was soon found to constitute two Bronze Age roundhouses—circular dwellings, typically featuring thatched roofs, that were made up of walls built using wooden or stone posts and stuffed with wattle-and-daub, a mixture of twigs, earth, and clay. The roundhouses have been dubbed the oldest houses in Cardiff.