SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H 475 
Friday, September 14. 
8. Prof. E. Exwauu.—The Early History of Lancashire in the Light 
of Place-names. 
Introductory remarks : The chief subject is the history of Lancashire, but 
by way of illustration some remarks will be offered on adjoining counties— 
the value and limitations of place-names as evidence. Place-names should be 
used in connection with other evidence (archzological, historical, &c.). 
1. Britons in Lancashire. 
There are no unequivocal traces in place-names of a pre-British population. 
Notes on British place-names in England generally. Various types of names 
and their distribution. Place-names point to the survival of a fairly consider- 
able British element in parts of Lancashire, and of a strong British element 
in parts of Cumberland. 
2. Anglians in Lancashire. 
Time of invasion. Districts first colonised. Menians and Northumbrians 
in Lancashire. 
3. Scandinavians in Lancashire, 
Remarks on the interpretation of the evidence. Distribution of Scandi- 
navian names. Danish colonies. Norse colonies. 
4, Irish-Gaelic elements in the Lancashire place-nomenclature. These are 
bound up with Norse elements and need not indicate a considerable Irish-Gaelic 
immigration. 
9. Joint Discussion with Section E on The Place of Man and his 
Environment in the Study of the Social Sciences. (See p. 458.) 
10. Prof. H. J. Funure.—The Prehistory of Wales. 
Archeology in Wales has special difficulties of dating finds. Flint is absent 
save on the beaches; metal apparently was rare in prehistoric times; so, apart 
from polished stonework, Wales is at a disadvantage. Probably in earlier 
times, as now, agriculture was subordinate to stock-raising following hunting, 
so settlement was less developed in Wales, and ancient pottery is rare. As 
pottery is most valuable for dating, workers in Wales have a special difficulty. 
Again, for the last 2,000 years, Wales has been a centre of preservation of old 
phases of life; probably this characteristic has marked it from still earlier 
times. Finds which are related in type to those of known periods elsewhere 
may thus be later in Wales. On the other hand, Wales shows interesting 
developments in megalithic monuments and in polished stonework. 
A very short sketch of the phases of human activity in Wales, so far as 
they can be inferred, through prehistoric time was attempted. 
11. Dr. R. BE. Mortimer Wuereter.—dHill-Forts in North Wales: 
Their Historical Background. 
Several contour-camps or ‘hill-forts’ which have been partially excavated 
in North Wales are of various types, but have yielded homogeneous results 
indicating occupation during (though apparently not before) the Roman period. 
Certain features suggest that these hill-forts may in part be a result of new 
social or political tendencies, which, during the first centuries B.c. and A.D., 
found expression in the great native oppida of Gaul and southern Britain. If, 
as the evidence suggests, this series of Welsh hill-forts was not built before 
the end of the first century a.p., the gradual north-westward diffusion of these 
new tendencies is logical both in time and in space. The survival of native 
hill-towns or ‘hill-forts’ in Wales throughout the Roman occupation is 
explained by the very incomplete Romanisation of this rugged frontier district, 
and it is even possible that under the later Empire, when the coasts were 
increasingly harassed by Irish and other invaders, the building or rebuilding 
of strongly fortified native settlements such as Dinorben may incidentally have 
assisted the Roman frontier organisation in the defence of the coast-line, 
