Prehistoric Wales facts for kids
Prehistoric Wales is all about the time before written history in the land we now call Wales. This long period stretches from about 230,000 years ago, when the oldest human remains were found, right up to AD 48. That's when the Roman army started fighting against the Welsh tribes.
For a long time, historians thought that different groups of people moved into Wales over time. They believed each new group largely replaced the people who were there before, with the Celts being the last big wave. However, new studies of human genes suggest this might not be true. It seems that people moving in happened on a smaller scale.
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Palaeolithic Period: Early Humans in Wales
The very first signs of humans in what is now Wales date back an amazing 230,000 years! An early Neanderthal jawbone piece with two teeth was found in a cave. This was in the River Elwy valley, near St Asaph in Denbighshire. This person probably lived during a warmer time between ice ages.
Between 1978 and 1995, more digging at the site found 17 more teeth from five different people. They also found seven hand axes and some animal bones. Some of these bones showed signs that humans had cut them. This site is super important because it's the most north-westerly place in Eurasia where early human remains have been found. Later Neanderthal hand axes were also found at Coygan Cave in Carmarthenshire. These are about 60,000 to 35,000 years old.
The Paviland caves in the Gower Peninsula are a rich source of tools from about 28,500 years ago. These include special tools called burins and scrapers. The first remains of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, found in Wales were the famous Red Lady of Paviland. This discovery happened in the 1820s.
The "Red Lady" was a human skeleton covered in red ochre, a red dye. It was found in 1823 in one of the Paviland caves. Even though it's called the "Red Lady," it was actually a young man! He lived about 33,000-34,000 years ago, during a warmer spell at the end of the Old Stone Age. This is thought to be the oldest known ceremonial burial in Western Europe. The skeleton was found with small ivory rods, ivory bracelets, and seashells.
People didn't live in Wales all the time back then. They moved in and out as the ice sheets grew and shrank with changes in climate. Wales seems to have been empty from about 21,000 years ago until after 13,000 years ago. A burial found at Kendrick's Cave on the Great Orme dates to about 12,000 years ago.
Mesolithic Period: Hunter-Gatherers
After the last Ice age, Wales started to look like it does today by about 7000 BC. At this time, it was home to Mesolithic people who hunted animals and gathered plants for food. Wales has many places where tools from this period have been found. However, it's rare to find them neatly buried in layers of earth.
The earliest dated Mesolithic site in Wales is Nab Head in Pembrokeshire, from around 9,200 years ago. Many sites from this time are near the coast. But 9,000 years ago, these places would have been further inland from the sea. There are many sites in Pembrokeshire, but also a good number in the uplands. These upland sites were probably seasonal hunting spots, like around Llyn Brenig. Some decorated pebbles found at Rhuddlan are the earliest art discovered in Wales.
Anglesey has been settled for a very long time, starting around 9,000 years ago. This was during the Mesolithic period at the Aberffraw bay, Trwyn Du site. Thousands of years later, around 2,000 BC, a Bronze Age burial mound was built there. It covered the original Trwyn Du finds of 7,000 Mesolithic flint tools and 2 axes.
Neolithic Period: First Farmers and Great Tombs
The first farming communities in Wales are thought to have started around 4000 BC. This marks the beginning of the Neolithic period. Evidence from pollen shows that forests were cleared more and more during this time.
The Neolithic period saw the building of many huge stone tombs called chambered tombs. The most famous ones include Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres on Anglesey. Also on Anglesey is one of the earliest settlements in Wales, possibly Wales' first village. The remains of wooden long houses near Llanfaethlu show a Neolithic village from 4,000 BC. Flint tools were also found there.
Three main types of megalithic tombs are found in Wales. These are the Severn-Cotswold type in the south-east, the Portal dolmen type, and the Passage graves. Passage graves are common in the Irish Sea area and along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Megalithic tombs are most often found in the western lowlands. There's evidence that Wales had strong cultural links with Ireland, especially in the early Neolithic period.
A number of houses from the Neolithic period have also been found in Wales. The most notable is the settlement at Clegyr Boia near St David's in Pembrokeshire. Many objects have been found too, especially smooth stone axeheads. There were several "factories" in Wales that made these axeheads. The biggest was the Graig Lwyd factory at Penmaenmawr on the north coast. It sent its products as far away as Yorkshire and the English midlands. Pottery finds also show a connection with Ireland.
Bronze Age: Metal Tools and New Burials
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Metal tools first appeared in Wales around 2500 BC with the Bell Beaker culture. At first, they used copper, then later bronze. The climate during the early Bronze Age (about 2100-1400 BC) was probably warmer than it is now. This is because many remains from this time are found in what are now cold, high areas.
Much of the copper for making bronze likely came from the copper mine on the Great Orme. Prehistoric mining there was very large scale, mostly from the middle Bronze Age. Copper from the Great Orme mines seems to have been used to make bronze tools of the Acton Park Complex. These tools, especially axeheads, were developed towards the end of the early Bronze Age. They were new in both how they were made and how they looked. They were sent far and wide, with examples found along the coast from Brittany to northern Germany.
Burial customs changed in the Bronze Age. Instead of shared tombs, people started burying their dead in round barrows (mounds) with special objects. Soon, burning bodies (cremation) replaced burying them whole. In Wales, a cemetery mound with many burials became common by about 2000 BC.
One amazing find from the Bronze Age in Wales is the Mold cape. This gold cape was found in a tomb at Bryn yr Ellyllion, Mold, Flintshire. It dates to 1900-1600 BC, weighs 560 grams, and was made from a single piece of gold. Very few weapons have been found in early Bronze Age graves in Wales compared to other objects. The lack of early Bronze Age settlements suggests that farms or small villages were not protected by defenses.
From about 1250 BC, the climate got worse, with more rain and much cooler summers. This became even clearer around 1000 BC. This led to more peat bogs forming and probably meant many upland settlements were left empty. Some think this led to fighting and changes in how society was organized. The first hillforts started appearing around 800 BC.
The late Bronze Age saw better bronze tools being made, and weapons became more common. While the weapons looked like styles from other places, the tools, especially axes, had clear regional differences. Based on tool types, Wales can be divided into four regions. These were the Ordovices (Mid to North Wales & Anglesey), the Deceangli (North East Wales), the Demetae (South West Wales), and the Silures (South East Wales). These regions roughly match the areas where Roman historians later recorded these tribes living.
Iron Age: Hillforts and Celtic Tribes
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The earliest iron tools found in Wales come from Llyn Fawr at the top of the Rhondda Valley. Objects found there, which seem to be special offerings, include three made of iron: a sword, a spearhead, and a sickle. These items are thought to be from about 650 BC. The sword seems to have come from another country, but the sickle looks like it copied a local bronze tool.
Over 600 hillforts were built across Britain from around 800 BC. The Iron Age saw many hillforts built in Wales. Famous ones include Pen Dinas near Aberystwyth and Tre'r Ceiri on the Llŷn Peninsula. The earliest clear Iron Age settlement in Wales is thought to be Castell Odo (modern-day Aberdaron). This small hillfort on the tip of the Llŷn Peninsula dates to about 400 BC, but people lived there even in the late Bronze Age.
The largest hillforts are most common along the eastern border of Wales. Some big ones are also found in the lowlands of north-west Wales. In the south-west, however, hillforts are very common but mostly small, less than 1.2 hectares in size. An example on Anglesey is Arthur's Table hillfort. It was an Iron Age settlement lived in for about a thousand years, even after the Roman period began.
Some Celtic tribes came from Germany and moved across Western Europe, including to Britain and Ireland. These western European Iron Age tribes in Britain were established in the late Iron Age, between about 500 BC and 200 BC. Later in the Iron Age, stone roundhouses started to be built from around 500 BC. These circular hut foundations were found all over Wales and Celtic Europe. These stone roundhouses were used for nearly a thousand years, right up until the Romans left Britain in the 5th century. A well-preserved hut circle on Anglesey is Din Lligwy. This small village was used from the Iron Age into the Roman occupation. A collection of Roman era pottery and coins was found during digs at Din Lligwy in 1905-07.
A very important find from this period was made in 1943 at Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey. This happened when the ground was being prepared for a Royal Air Force base. The hidden collection included weapons, shields, chariots with their parts, harnesses, slave chains, and tools. Many of these items had been purposely broken. They seem to have been votive offerings, meaning gifts to gods. These finds are considered one of the most important collections of La Tène metalwork found in Britain. Pottery, on the other hand, is quite rare in Wales during this time, and most of what has been found seems to have been brought in from elsewhere.
The La Tène culture is usually linked to the Celts. Until recently, people generally thought that this culture appearing meant a large invasion by people who also brought a Celtic language, which later became Welsh. The more popular idea now is that any movement of people was on a smaller scale. Instead, cultural ideas and practices spread from one group to another. There is some evidence for this, like burials found near older religious sites. It's been suggested that a Celtic language was already spoken in Wales by about 700 BC.
The prehistoric period ended when the Roman army arrived. They started their fights against the Welsh tribes in 48 AD, attacking the Deceangli in north-east Wales. Wales was divided among several tribes. The Silures and the Ordovices fought back the hardest. The Roman conquest of Wales was finished by 79 AD. Reports from Roman historians like Tacitus give us a little more information about Wales at this time. For example, the island of Anglesey was apparently a strong base for the Druids. The impact of the Romans might have been different in various parts of Wales. For instance, there's evidence that some hillforts, like Tre'r Ceiri, continued to be lived in during the Roman period.
See also
- List of Cadw properties
- Archaeology of Wales
- Early history of Ireland
- Prehistoric Britain
- Prehistoric Scotland
