PAI-EOLITHIC FAMILY 



Every year meant a further very gradual, slow destruction 

 of the pine forest. 



About 60,000 B.C., our paleolithic hunters with chipped- 

 stone weapons would be obliged to travel further to the 

 north. New savages with round heads and polished-stone 

 weapons would make life in Renfrewshire too uncertain and 

 too diversified by massacres. These last possessed seed corn, 

 a few fruit trees as well as goats, cattle, and perhaps a few 

 hardy, shaggy ponies. At first these settlers would be 

 obliged to live in a lake dwelling, say in Linwood Moss, 

 which is close at hand. They would then drive their cattle 

 over the surrounding district, and camp in slightly-built 

 villages. Near at hand, probably on the hill, they would 

 build a (round) camp or fort, where they could fly for safety 

 in the continual fights and invasions of the period. 



Sooner or later a village would be built near Pennell Brae. 

 One summer day the villagers attacked the wood that 

 covered it ; they cut down all the small brushwood and 

 hacked through the bark of every big tree. After a few 

 weeks, when the trees were dead, the wood was set on fire. 

 Then a rough fold made of rude wattle and daub was 

 formed, and every night the cattle and sheep were driven in. 



After three or four years, this fold would be ploughed up 

 by exceedingly rude instruments. Barley or certain kinds of 

 wheat would be grown year after year until the crop was not 

 worth gathering. When that happened, another fold would 

 be ploughed up. Probably the whole of Pennell Brae went 

 through this rude sort of agricultural treatment at one time 

 or another. At the same time goats, cattle, and the demand 

 for firewood, obtained in the most reckless and wasteful 

 manner, would have very seriously interfered with the 

 forest. 



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