A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



throw more light on the state of the county at this time. In other 

 counties, in addition to finds of axes, adzes and flakes such as have been 

 found in Worcestershire, a systematic search has been rewarded by the 

 finding of bone instruments, rude fragments of pottery and the remains 

 of domestic animals. In some counties traces of the clusters of huts 

 which formed the tribal dwellings have also been discovered, in others 

 remains of the mounds which formed the places of interment of the 

 Neolithic men. None of these details have as yet been found in Worces- 

 tershire, possibly because they have not been properly looked for. After 

 an exhaustive search has been made it may be possible for some future 

 writer to do more than merely state the fact of the existence of Neo- 

 lithic man in the county. 



Fig. A gives a rough sketch of the county showing the places where 

 the Neolithic remains have up till now been found. A glance at it 

 shows the position of the hills and the river valleys where the traces 

 of this race of men have been discovered in the county. 



The Bronze Age 



The Neolithic dwellers in Britain devoted their attention to agricul- 

 ture. They were rudely disturbed in their occupation of the island by a 

 race of invaders who having the advantage of better weapons succeeded in 

 dispossessing the inhabitants from their English settlements and driving 

 them first to the west of the Severn and afterwards to remote corners of 

 Wales. 



It is in this period that the importance of Worcestershire com- 

 mences, for in it probably began that series of conflicts that was con- 

 tinuous until Wales became part of England. Successive invaders drove 

 the previous occupants of the county to the districts west of the Severn. 

 The row of forts on the western boundaries of Worcestershire bears 

 evidence to this fact. The forts on this line mark either the limits of 

 the invasion, or the advance line of defence of the old inhabitants against 

 further aggression, or the advance line of the invaders' outposts to pre- 

 vent raids from the old inhabitants of the district from which they had 

 been dispossessed. This feature remains to the present day along the 

 hills to the west of the Severn from Abberley to Malvern, and from 

 Malvern to Redmarley. Most of the hills that command any of the 

 passes to the west show traces of earthworks, such as Woodbury and 

 the Berrow at Martley, which command the passes into the Teme 

 valley ; on the Malvern Hills the Camp Hill and Midsummer Hill 

 command the roads over these hills. Probably all these camps in their 

 present form have few if any remains of the work of the early invaders 

 or defenders of the country ; but other traces of earthworks remain to 

 point out the then state of things — the invaders pushing on, the dwellers 

 in the county resisting the invasion. 



There is considerable evidence of the occupation of Worcestershire 

 by the Goidels, as the invaders who dispossessed the Neolithic men are 

 called. Here the evidence does not only consist of finding weapons and 



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