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 (b) 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 Palæolithic 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 comprises 'the period which covers all the events which took place between the Pleistocene age on the one hand and the beginning of the Historic
179
