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Bronze Age Monuments

The Berwyn’s have seen continuous human activity since the earliest times. It is believed that Mesolithic and Neolithic peoples worked the hills around Llandrillo, clearing woodland for pasture, though evidence is sparse. Indeed, it is not until the Bronze Age where irrefutable evidence is found.

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The Bronze Age, in fact, is the high point of prehistoric activity in the area. All prehistoric sites which have been discovered on the Berwyns are of the Bronze Age, including near enough forty burial mounds.  They range from impressive cairns on the summits of Cadair Bronwen and Berwyn, to smaller affairs at Ffrith Camen and the Nant Cwm Tywell ring cairn. 

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Less common are ritual and ceremonial monuments, and there are difficulties in identifying the age of standing stones. The Tomale stone, for instance is a very impressive 2 metres tall, but could as easily be a route marker for medieval or even later peoples as it could the Bronze Age people that walked the routes south over the mountains.  There is evidence for settlements overlooking the Pennant Valley at Nant Clochnant, but once again it is difficult to definitively date them to the Bronze Age.

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Suffice to say, that while the Berwyns are strewn with the evidence of human activity, and while most of that activity seems to be of the Bronze Age, more work is needed to age stratify that occupation.

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