Cylchgronau Cymru

Of palaeolithic man the county has yielded few traces. Our chief hope in this direction would be to search the limestone area about Llanymynech. Early man sought out such areas for the natural caves, which occur in them. As his remains have been found in the Peak District, and in the Valley of Clwyd, it is not impossible, that a similar cave may yet be found in this area. As the climate changed the forests spread across into Britain, and the descendants of the old reindeer and mammoth hunters appear to have adopted other food habits. Their implements included large numbers of microliths, or pigmy flakes of flint, some of which have been found at Aberystwyth. Whether these Epipalaeoli- thic peoples occupied Montgomeryshire, or whether they were confined by the forests to the sea coast, we do not know. As their tools occur in the Pennines, it is possible, that search in our moorlands might also bring some to light. At present the moorland tracts in the west of the county are archaeologically an almost unexplored area, in spite of the few mounds and cairns, that have been recorded in them. The Epipalaeolithic Period was brought to a close by a revolution in the ways of life. Agriculture was adopted, and, with it, more settled habits, associated with which was a development of the arts of pottery-making, weaving, house building and metallurgy. Though these changes first took place outside of Europe they gradually travelled across the continent by various routes, and finally reached our island. Montgomeryshire has a good many traces of the Neolithic Period and Bronze Age in the shape of cairns, tumuli, finds of isolated cr grouped implements, and possibly of trackways. There is little doubt, that careful search would yield many more. Our hills should be searched for hut circles, and also for sites of stone implc-