Neolithic and Bronze Age Pembrokeshire.

Abstract

This chapter tells the story of Pembrokeshire between about 4000 BC and 700 BC, a remote period of more than 3000 years when life was quite different from that of more recent times. It is conventionally referred to as the Neolithic (4000–2000 BC), early Bronze Age (2000–1600 BC), middle Bronze Age (1600–1000 BC), and late Bronze Age (1000–700 BC), although advances in radiocarbon dating over recent decades provide a secure chronological framework that now allows us to talk in terms of specific millennia and centuries. What we present here is a summary based on currently available archaeological evidence that has survived to be described, investigated, studied, and interpreted by prehistorians and other specialists working in related fields. There are no written records to help us in this task; all we have to go on are the lumps, bumps, structures, monuments, deposits, and stray finds that survive in the modern landscape. Some remains, for example the Pentre Ifan megalithic tomb and the Gors Fawr stone circle, are truly spectacular in their form and setting, and have long been recognized as tourist destinations and places for spiritual nourishment through their connections with the distant past. Other sites and finds may seem less impressive, but their contribution to understanding prehistory is no less important.