Читать книгу Walking in Carmarthenshire онлайн

10 страница из 39

History

Carmarthenshire is dotted with prehistoric remains, including burial chambers, standing stones, hill forts, tumuli and stone circles, very few of which have been excavated adequately and few of these have been dated scientifically. One exception is Coygan Cave, a limestone cave near Laugharne, now destroyed by quarrying but which was extensively excavated and produced archaeological finds that included two hand axes of Mousterian type associated with Neanderthals, from about 50,000 years ago. Other palaeo-ecological work has shown that human exploitation of this region occurred from round about this time, albeit with varying and uneven intensity, but particularly the expansion of activity from the late Neolithic, which can be equated with a general growth in settlement and agriculture, similar to the rest of the British Isles.

When the Romans invaded Britannia in AD43, Carmarthenshire formed part of the lands of the Demetae tribe, a Celtic people of the late Iron Age. Following their submission, the Romans built a fort at Carmarthen, Moridunum, followed by others at Loughor, Llandeilo and Llandovery. They also had a settlement at the Dolaucothi Gold Mines near Pumsaint.