Prehistoric Wales
[1][2] Excavations of the site between 1978 and 1995 revealed a further 17 teeth belonging to five individuals, a total of seven hand axes and some animal bones, some of which show signs of butchery.
[4][5] The Paviland limestone caves of the Gower Peninsula in south Wales are by far the richest source of Aurignacian material in Britain, including burins and scrapers dated to about 28,500 years ago.
[12] Settlement in Wales was apparently intermittent, as periods of cooling and warming led to the ice sheets advancing and retreating.
There is a particular concentration in Pembrokeshire, but there are also a good number of upland sites, most apparently seasonal hunting locations, for example around Llyn Brenig.
[20] Anglesey's permanent settlement has a history beginning c. 9,000 years ago during the Mesolithic (European) period at the Aberffraw bay, Trwyn Du (Welsh: Black nose) excavated site.
Millennia later, around 2,000 BC was when a Bronze Age kerb cairn (bowl barrow) was built covering the original Trwyn Du artifact deposit of 7,000 thousand Mesolithic flint tools and 2 axes.
The Neolithic saw the construction of many chambered tombs, the most notable including Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres on Anglesey.
[26] A number of houses from the Neolithic period have also been found in Wales, most notably the settlement at Clegyr Boia near St David's in Pembrokeshire.
The climate during the Early Bronze Age (c. 2100-1400 BC) is thought to have been warmer than at present, as there are many remains from this period in what are now bleak uplands.
Inhumation was soon replaced by cremation and in Wales the cemetery mound with a number of burials had become the standard form by about 2000 BC.
These items are thought to date to about 650 BC, and while the sword appears to be imported, the sickle is an imitation of a native bronze prototype.
[21] The Iron Age saw the building of hillforts which are particularly numerous in Wales, including Pen Dinas near Aberystwyth and Tre'r Ceiri on the Llŷn Peninsula.
These stone-built roundhouses were occupied for nearly a thousand years and were used until the end of the Roman occupation of Great Britain during the 5th century.
A well-preserved hut circle on Anglesey is Din Lligwy, the small village was dated from the Iron Age to Roman occupation.
[50][49][51] A particularly significant find from this period was made in 1943 at Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey, when the ground was being prepared for the construction of a Royal Air Force base.
The reports of Roman historians such as Tacitus give a little more information about Wales in this period, such as that the island of Anglesey was apparently a stronghold of the Druids.
An example of that era is the Welsh pre-Celtic (Goidelic) Silures tribe, who occupied their lands from the ancient times of Britain.
The tribe later established a home in the Malvern Hills building earthworks to protect themselves from Ostorius Scapula and his Roman army.
