Gower Peninsula

Stone Age

Wales is known to have been inhabited since at least the Upper Paleolithic period, and the Gower Peninsula has been the scene of several important archaeological discoveries. Paviland Cave (also known as Goat's Hole) has yielded stone leaf shaped points of the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ) technocomplex, which are now thought to have been produced by some of the oldest modern human groups in Europe. While not dated, a LRJ site in Germany has been dated to 45,000 years ago.^[12] Paviland Cave as well as Long Hole have also yielded artifacts of the later early Upper Palaeolithic Aurignacian technocomplex,^[12] which likely date to around or somewhat later than 37,000 years ago. Paviland Cave in particular shows the richest evidence for an Aurignacian occupation of any site in Britain.^[13] In 1823, William Buckland discovered a fairly complete Upper Paleolithic human skeleton in Paviland Cave. They named their find the "Red Lady of Paviland", because the skeleton is dyed in red ochre, though later investigators determined it was actually a male. This skeleton is one of the oldest ceremonial burial anywhere in Western Europe. The most recent re-calibrated radiocarbon dating in 2009 indicates that the skeleton can be dated to around 34,000 Before Present (BP).^[14] It has been suggested that the skeleton is related to the Aurignacian occupation at Paviland Cave. Cat's Hole and Paviland Cave have yielded tanged stone points of the early Gravettian technocomplex, likely dating to around 33,000 years ago.^[15] Stone tools from Paviland Cave also indicates the occupation of the Gower during the much later late Upper Palaeolithic Creswellian period, around 15-12,000 years ago.^[16] In 2010, an instructor from Bristol University exploring Cathole Cave discovered a rock drawing of a red deer from the same period. This may be the oldest cave art found in Great Britain.^[17]

In 1937 the Parc Cwm long cairn was identified as a Severn-Cotswold type of chambered long barrow. Also known as Parc le Breos burial chamber, it is a partly restored Neolithic chambered tomb. The megalithic burial chamber, or "cromlech", was built around 6,000BP.

Bronze Age

Gower is also home to menhirs or standing stones from the Bronze Age. Of the nine stones^[when?], eight remain today. One of the most notable of the stones is Arthur's stone near Cefn Bryn. Its 25-ton capstone was most likely a glacial erratic (a piece of rock/conglomerate carried by glacial ice some distance from the rock outcrop from which it came): the builders dug under it and supported it with upright stones to create a burial chamber. The remains of Sweyne Howes on Rhossili Down, Penmaen Burrows Tomb (Pen-y-Crug) and Nicholaston Long Cairn are three other well-known Neolithic chambered tombs. During the Bronze Age, people continued to use local caves for shelter and for burying their dead. Bronze Age evidence, such as funeral urns, pottery and human remains, has been found in Tooth Cave at Llethryd, Culver Hole (Port Eynon) and Cathole Cave. With the transition into the Iron Age, hill forts (timber fortifications on hill tops and coastal promontories) and earthworks began to appear. The largest example of this type of Iron Age settlement in the Gower Peninsula is Cilifor Top near Llanrhidian.^{[citation needed]}

Roman era

Roman occupation brought new settlement. The Romans built Leucarum, a rectangular or trapezoidal fort at the mouth of the River Loughor, in the late 1st century AD to house a regiment of Roman auxiliary troops. Its remains are located beneath the town of Loughor. Stone defences were added to the earthen ditch and rampart by AD 110 and the fort was occupied until the middle or end of that century. However, it was later abandoned for a time and in the early 3rd century the ditch naturally silted up. It appears to have been brought back into use during the reign of Carausius who was worried about Irish raids, but was abandoned again before the 4th century. A Norman castle was later built on the site.^{[citation needed]}

Anglicisation

Following the Norman invasion of Wales the commote of Gŵyr passed into the hands of English-speaking barons, and its southern part soon became Anglicised.^{[citation needed]} In 1203 King John (1199–1216) granted the Lordship of Gower to William III de Braose (died 1211) for the service of one knight's fee.^[18] It remained with the Braose family until the death of William de Braose, 2nd Baron Braose in 1326, when it passed from the family to the husband of one of his two daughters and co-heiresses, Aline and Joan.^{[citation needed]} In 1215 a local lord, Rhys Gryg of Deheubarth, claimed control of the peninsula, but in 1220 he ceded control to the Anglo-Norman lords, perhaps on the orders of his overlord, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth.^{[citation needed]}

As an Anglo-Norman peninsula isolated from its Welsh hinterland but with coastal links to other parts of south Wales and southwest England, it developed its own Gower dialect of English.^{[citation needed]}

Glamorgan

In 1535, the Act of Union resulted in the Lordship of Gower becoming part of the historic county of Glamorgan with the southwest part becoming the hundred of Swansea.

Present day

Agriculture remains important to the area with tourism playing an ever-increasing role in the local economy. The peninsula has a Championship status golf course at Fairwood Park just off Fairwood Common, which twice hosted the Welsh PGA Championships in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the Gower Golf Club at Three Crosses hosts the West Wales Open, a two-day tournament on Wales' professional golf tour, the Dragon Tour. Gower is part of the Swansea travel to work area.^[19]

Llethryd Tooth Cave

The Llethryd Tooth Cave, or Tooth Hole cave, is a Bronze Age ossuary site in a limestone cave, about 1,500 yards (1.4 km) north north west of the Parc Cwm long cairn cromlech, on private land along the Parc Cwm valley, near the village of Llethryd. In 1961 the cave was rediscovered by cavers, who found human bones. An excavation was carried out by D.P. Webley & J. Harvey in 1962 revealing the disarticulated remains (i.e. not complete skeletons) of six adults and two children, dated to the Early Bronze Age or Beaker culture. Other finds are now held at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff: Early Bronze Age, or Beaker, collared urn pottery; flaked knives; a scraper; flint flakes; a bone spatula; a needle & bead; and animal bones – the remains of domesticated animals, cat and dog. Archaeologists Alasdair Whittle and Michael Wysocki note that this period of occupation may be "significant", with respect to Parc Cwm long cairn, as it is "broadly contemporary with the secondary use of the tomb". In their article published in The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (vol.64 (1998), pp. 139–82) Whittle and Wysocki suggest corpses may have been placed in caves near the cromlech until they decomposed, when the bones were moved to the tomb – a process known as excarnation.^{[23][24][25][26][27]}

At 1,525 m long (nearly 1 mile), the Tooth Cave is the longest cave in Gower. It has tight and flooded sections, and so is kept locked for safety.^[28][29]