Humans worked the Welsh hills 10,000 years ago

News Wales ^ | Wednesday, June 17, 2009 | unattributed

[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.

[Little Bill]

Why did the people, living free and without strife live in a ville which had a bunker mentality and was only of limited approach?

Why would people live in a place of limited access with entry only from the roof. Read about the LBK culture rather nasty thing were happening about this time.

[SunkenCiv]

LBK culture... Little Bill K culture? ;')

The roof entry made sense when one didn't build chimneys but had fires at home; and the town would be continuously walled, without having suburbs spring up outside the walls for perhaps generations until the city flung a new wall out around the suburb. :') Of course, the constant traffic across the ceiling must have been annoying.

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Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology by Mary Settegast	Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History by William Ryan Walter Pitman hardcover

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