Much has been written on the issue of climatic deterioration beginning Just before 1250 b. c. accelerating after 850 and reaching its coolest and wettest about 650, with a period of climatic amelioration from c. 450 (Lamb 1981; Harding 1982). The impact will have been most severe in areas of high precipitation, especially the exposed western hills and classic uplands where vegetational coupled with anthropogenic changes led to leaching and podsolization, and at worst to extensive peat formation. Though the effects are thought to have been less severe in the rain-shadow zone of eastern Wales, overall a massive loss of exploitable land and a dramatic curtailment of agricultural potential is envisaged, precipitating a protracted crisis which can only have led to a primitive economic recession and certainly pressure on population, if not a demographic decline in some areas (Burgess 1985).
It is thought that one response to the crisis was a retreat from the uplands and the realignment of settlement in favour of more sheltered locations. However, pollen sequences from the Brenig valley (Denbs.) seem to conflict with the general hypothesis that the Welsh uplands were wholly abandoned soon after 800 b. c. (Lynch 1993: 167). What is significant is the wholesale failure of many LBA settlements
- even those in lowlands - to continue in occupation into the EPRIA, clearly indicating dislocation and thus far-reaching socio-economic change. The starkness of climatic variation between the Welsh regions - broadly eastern and western
- eventually led to different subsistence systems and social frameworks which are manifest in the settlement archaeology of the LBA/EPRIA transition.
One response, perhaps universal but better represented in eastern Wales, was conflict leading to a growing investment in the physical security of groups of families and their chattels by the construction of fortified villages. The relationship between climatic deterioration, the process of nucleation and fortification is complex. In a Welsh dimension the eastern bias is perhaps explicable by the fact that this interface between upland and lowland supported a habitually larger population, but one which suffered proportionally greater stress because of a reduction In agricultural yields which could not be remedied through normal expansion; and if, as is suggested, there was a switch of emphasis to pastoralism, which demands proportionately even more land, sources of conflict would have multiplied.
Figure 35.1 Wales and the Marches: hill-forts and other sites mentioned in the text.
Fortification takes a number of forms: a timber-reinforced rampart of c. 800 BC at the Breiddin (Mont.) (Figure 35.2) (Musson 1991); an eighth-century BC stone-revetted earthwork at Llwyn Bryn-dinas (Musson et al. 1992); but palisades dominate as at Moel y Gaer (Guilbert 1976) (Figure 35.3a), Dinorben (Guilbert 1979b), Old Oswestry (Varley 1948), Dale Fort (Pembs.) (Benson and Williams 1987) and possibly Ffridd Faldwyn (Mont.) (Guilbert 1981). Such sites, normally on hilltops, represent a fundamental reappraisal of the needs of communities which hitherto do
Figure 35.2 The Breiddin, Mont.; simplified plan of the late bronze age and iron age defences and internal features at the south-western end of the hill-fort. (Source; Musson 1991.)
Not seem to have inhabited defensible, nucleated settlements. Whilst most are of the order of 3-5 ha, the Breiddin, with probably 28 ha enclosed, is an exception, with clear implications in terms of population and social organization. The site was apparently permanent with timber buildings and four-posters (Figure 35.2) and, judging by the presence of Broadward complex weapons, tools and items of personal adornment, of high status. Its occupation ended within the eighth century BC with its burning. At Llwyn Bryn-dinas, too, occupation terminated within the century, whilst at Coed y Cymdda (Glam.) (Owen-John 1988) the defences were left unfinished.
Figure 35.3 Moel y Gaer, Flint.: the western defences and internal structures: (a) Phase i; (b) Phase 2; (c) Phase 3. (Sources: Guilbert 1976, 1982.)
The general tendency for these community settlements to be abandoned suggests that social stress may have been transient and/or spasmodic. Nevertheless, they seem to have been the harbinger of a need to enclose and protect communities; hence the hierarchy of defended settlements which is the hallmark of the PRIA. Despite the apparent sharp breaks exhibited in the settlement record some of the essential components of MBA/LBA settlement, especially structural and artefactual, continue, though economic strategies were changing in response to the prevailing conditions, whilst in the emergence of a more markedly hierachical social system we can discern one of the dominant forces of the PRIA.
Climatic amelioration after c. 450 b. c. allowed communities to establish an agricultural balance leading to a population recovery, with eastern areas benefiting soonest. The north and west may have suffered a more prolonged hiatus (Williams 1988), with the loss of upland grazing necessitating an increase in forest clearance, archaeologically recognizable only after c.400 b. c. (Turner 1970; Taylor 1980; Kelly 1991b).
World History
