EARLY MAN 



THE imagined paucity of material is probably the reason why so 

 far no one has thought it worth while attempting to work out 

 the history of Prehistoric man in the county. All that has yet 

 been done is to chronicle the finds of certain implements and 

 weapons. The accounts of these finds are scattered through various 

 books and the proceedings of various societies. No attempt has been 

 made to utilize the evidence which they furnish as to the presence of 

 the successive races, or the struggles among the primitive peoples who 

 occupied the tract of forest which now forms Worcestershire. It is 

 unfortunate that this should be so, as the county has a story of its 

 own, quite distinct from its neighbours. Its southern border, the 

 Avon valley, was the route that invaders from central England would 

 naturally follow on their way to the west, while the valley of the Severn 

 was a frontier, possibly the frontier of the Iberians against the Goidels 

 and of the Goidels against the Brythons, as in historic times it became 

 the frontier between the English and Welsh. It is not without interest 

 to note that most of the finds in the county are either in these river 

 valleys or on the hills overlooking them. The northern and eastern 

 parts of the county have so far yielded practically nothing towards its 

 early history. Everything that has been found comes from the part 

 south and south-west of the Lickey Hills. 



It is proposed here (a) to give some account of the earliest history of 

 the county as evidenced by the finds, and {6) a list of the finds and other 

 traces of pre-Roman times which have occurred within the county. In 

 dealing with the first point the general proposition will have to be stated 

 and the finds utilized to apply it to Worcestershire. Much is and must 

 of necessity remain matter of inference. As the area of the county is but 

 small all that can be done is to state what was presumably taking place 

 within it, and to rely upon the presumptive evidence which the presence 

 of weapons and implements affords to show that the races of men who 

 used those weapons and had those implements inhabited the county. In 

 the present condition of things it is impossible to do more. At the outset 

 it may be stated that so far no trace of Palaeolithic man has been found 

 in the county, possibly because a thorough scientific search has never 

 been made for such traces. 



The Prehistoric period as defined by Professor Boyd Dawkins com- 

 prises 'the period which covers all the events which took place between 

 the Pleistocene age on the one hand and the beginning of the Historic 



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