The Midlands in Pre-History

5.1. Map 4

The Midland Plateau has been isolated throughout history until recent times. It is far from the sea, accessible by small
streams only, and was formerly surrounded and largely covered by dense deciduous jungle. While Lowland Britain was
cleared and settled by successive invaders, only refugees of earlier cultures went to join the primitive hunters of Arden. It was not until later Saxon times that the Plateau was colonised, and then by groups from earlier settlements. The
bounding river valleys were important corridors of human movement, but the Plateau was always culturally poor. There was abundance of game and fish, and some cultivable land, but most of Arden could not be tamed without great labour.

The first men on the Plateau, perhaps 250,000 years ago, were hunters and gatherers in small family groups. They
had crude stone tools and weapons, skin-clothes and tents. In sandstone country they used caves. After the Ice Ages,
men returned to a region of swollen rivers, enormous swamps, growing forests. Only hilltops and ridges were usable for
dwelling and travel. Ridgeways then trodden remained in use for millennia. The 'Jurassic Way' along the limestone scarp.

In the Sub-Boreal dry, warm period about 1500 B.C., the forests and swamps dwindled. Direct trade routes then
established may have been maintained after the return to wetter conditions. The 'Old Straight Roads', possibly used
by Roman engineers.

Neolithic peoples had woollen cloth, canoes, dogs, fire, fine stone implements. Settlements known were at Bourne
Pools (Aldridge) and Packington. Stone tool 'factories' at Nuneaton and Corndon Hill. Penmaenmawr (North Wales coast) axes found in Midlands. Round barrows on Clent, few other local finds. No linchets (cultivated patches).
Bronze Age Beaker Folk c.1800 B.C. Celts c.1000 B.C. and later. Bronze implements at Deritend and Mackadown.
Iron Age from 500 B.C. in Britain. Celtic hillside and terrace settlements, hillforts for herding and defence.
Cornovii on Wrekin, Coritani at Leicester, no names tribes for Plateau. 'No Man's Land.'
BERRY MOUND. 11 acres, 850 yards circuit, hillfort in Solihull Lodge. Two banks; ditches, causewayed entrance.
Palisades. Bog defences on three sides. 'Buhr' (fortress). Large tribal centre?
WYCHBURY HILL, Clent Hills. 7½ acres, two ditches, very steep slopes, incurved entrance. Tiny summit enclosure.
CASTLE RING, Cannock Chase. 12 acres, double bank, dry ditches. Tribal centre?