Afon Clun - History

History

From the end of the last ice age (between 10,000 and 12,000 BP), mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Central Europe began to migrate to Great Britain. They would have been able to walk between Continental Europe and Great Britain on dry land, prior to the post glacial rise in sea level, up until between 6,000 and 7,000 BP. As the area was heavily wooded and movement would have been restricted, it is likely that people also came to what was to become known as Wales by boat from the Iberian Peninsula. These neolithic colonists integrated with the indigenous people, who gradually changed from being hunter-gatherers to settled farmers. They cleared the forests to establish pasture and to cultivate the land.

In common with the people living all over Great Britain, over the following centuries the people living in what is now known as the Afon Clun valley assimilated new immigrants and exchanged ideas of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Celtic cultures. Together with the approximate areas now known as Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire and the rest of Glamorgan, the Afon Clun Valley was settled by a Celtic British tribe called the Silures.