Читать книгу Walking on the Gower. 30 walks exploring the AONB peninsula in South Wales онлайн

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Goat’s Hole, the burial site of the ‘Red Lady of Paviland‘ (Walks 15–17 and 21)

As the ice finally retreated around 10,000 years ago plant communities dominated by grass and sedge spread northwards. Many of the present-day plants found in the heathland and limestone grassland grew within these open communities, but by about 8500 years ago, when the climate was slightly warmer and drier than it is today, trees and shrubs, such as birch and pine followed by ash, oak, elm and hazel, had largely replaced them.

Mesolithic people are known to have fished and gathered shellfish when the coastline was only a few kilometres beyond its present location, with sea level rising rapidly to reach just 15-20m below its present-day height.

Evidence of activity is more plentiful during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods as people began to construct various funerary monuments for their dead, such as chambered tombs and cairns like those in Parc le Breos and Sweyne’s Howes. The communal graves and flint scatters suggest that groups of people inhabited the area during the Neolithic period, although no evidence for settlements has been found.