Posted on 06/17/2009 4:26:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Hunters and farmers were using the Clwydian Hills in North Wales 10,000 years ago, new research has revealed. Analysis of a sample of earth extracted from the Clwydian Range has pieced together the timeline of human activity on the hills dating back almost 10,000 years. The sample was taken from Moel Llys y Coed near Cilcain, to provide a picture for the change in the landscape over the years to become the heather moorland seen today... Techniques used included analysis of the pollen present in the sample and radio carbon dating. Evidence of burning in the Mesolithic period (8000-4000BC) implies use of the uplands for hunting. Burning woodland would create clearings to attract wild grazing herds, making them easier to hunt in the open. Burning would also have encouraged the growth of hazel, providing nuts as a valuable addition to people's diet. There is evidence of using the uplands for animal grazing in the earlier Neolithic (the New Stone Age 4000-2200BC) period and there is evidence that people were beginning to cultivate cereals. In the later Neolithic we see an increase in the upland grassland -- ideal for grazing stock. The first signs of heather are seen in the Bronze Age (2200-750BC). Grazing and cultivation is still happening, but we see more clearance of the area at around 2,600 BC -- this could be linked to the building of the magnificent hillforts which tower above the neighbouring valleys.
(Excerpt) Read more at newswales.co.uk ...
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head for the hills
When did the first humans arrive in the British Isles? Weren’t the Isles connected to Europe 10,000 years ago due to lower sea level?
Clwydian Hills
The Neolithic explosion has always mystified me, from smelly subhuman hunter gathers to settled smelly farmers is a mystery.
Most leaps in civilization have occurred in the presence of a warming climate. Check the correlation of the neolithic age with paleoclimate change.
Gorgeous area. They had good taste.
I have, the Younger Drayas could be a clue. Look further back to the ages that the FemNazies orgaze over, the Venus Statues, Weaving, big butts, damned cold, 20 Kilo years ago.
I doubt the hunter gatherers would have been subhuman.
They would have been happy and healthy compared to the farmers, but overwhelmed by the larger numbers.
Great stuff. Where are the Clwydian Hills and how do you pronounce it for the Gaelic deprived dolt? I love the Welsh country and may have visited close to there during my time in Norfolk as a military officer. What was their primary occupation? I have always maintained that you can dig a hole anywhere in Great Britain and you will come up with some sort of find. Of course, I am an Anglophile.
Yes, they did...and looked suspiciously like blam and CholeraJoe.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago.
9,000 year old Cheddar Man is related to my dad's mother (DNA U5a). There is also a 23,000 year old Cheddar Man but, we don't know much about him.
Miners minus 8009ers? Oh wait, I loused up the math...
Clwyd is pronounced the way it’s spelled. It rolls right off the tongue. ;’)
Not a speaker of Cymric though...
They’re not bad. Some of my ancestors are from Wales.
The Neolithic explosion has always mystified me, from smelly subhuman hunter gathers to settled smelly farmers is a mystery.That problem may be one of perception, but that's just MHO. There is scarce but reasonable evidence of settled living (as blam notes) 100s of 1000s of years ago, and most of the area where they would have been living at that time is now submerged. When the ice was piled up inland, what we know as the continental shelf was teeming with life, and due to lower altitude was warmer, well watered everywhere, etc.
Too bad there’s no fossil called “Monterey Jack”, when you think about it...
The earliest known cave paintings in Britain (Nottinghamshire) were made about 13,000 years ago, and the more durable artifacts are arrowheads, spearheads, and axeheads, the oldest of the latter being much older than this cave painting.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/986733/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1091680/posts?page=38#38
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1357365/posts?page=43#43
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1696581/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1711701/posts
I dislike the opinions of a lot of a lot of archeologist's because they have a grand poobah and thus suck up the latest opinion in order to live off of the Dime.
People are people and haven't changed all that much, except in Technology in the last 20,000 years, I wonder why that is.
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