page_title: History of Cardiff
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: History of Cardiff / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Siambr Gladdu Lythian Sant o dde gorllewin
context_page_description: The history of Cardiff—a City and County Borough and the capital of Wales—spans at least 6,000 years. The area around Cardiff has been inhabited by modern humans since the Neolithic Period. Four Neolithic burial chambers stand within a radius of 10 mi of Cardiff City Centre, with the St Lythans burial chamber the nearest, at about 4 mi to the west. Bronze Age tumuli are at the summit of Garth Hill, within the county's northern boundary, and four Iron Age hillfort and enclosure sites have been identified within the City and County of Cardiff boundary, including Caerau Hillfort, an enclosed area of 5.1 ha. Until the Roman conquest of Britain, Cardiff was part of the territory of an Iron Age Celtic British tribe called the Silures, which included the areas that would become known as Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan. The Roman fort established by the River Taff, which gave its name to the city—Caerdydd, earlier Caerdyf, from caer and Taf—was built over an extensive settlement that had been established by the Silures in the 50s AD.
context_section_description: Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Central Europe began to migrate northwards from the end of the last ice age (between 12,000 and 10,000 years before present(BP)). The area that would become known as Wales had become free of glaciers by about 10,250 BP. At that time sea levels were much lower than today, and the shallower parts of what is now the North Sea were dry land. The east coast of present-day England and the coasts of present-day Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands were connected by the former landmass known as Doggerland, forming the British Peninsula on the European mainland. The post-glacial rise in sea level separated Wales and Ireland, forming the Irish Sea. Doggerland was submerged by the North Sea and, by 8000 BP, the British Peninsula had become the island of Great Britain. John Davies has theorised that the story of Cantre'r Gwaelod's drowning and tales in the Mabinogion, of the waters between Wales and Ireland being narrower and shallower, may be distant folk memories of this time.
  As Great Britain became heavily wooded, movement between different areas was restricted, and travel between what was to become known as Wales and continental Europe became easier by sea, rather than by land. People came to Wales by boat from the Iberian Peninsula. These Neolithic colonists integrated with the indigenous people, gradually changing their lifestyles from a nomadic life of hunting and gathering, to become farmers, some of whom settled in the area that would become Glamorgan. They cleared the forests to establish pasture and to cultivate the land, developed new technologies such as ceramics and textile production, and they brought a tradition of long barrow construction that began in continental Europe during the 7th millennium BC.
  Archaeological evidence from sites in and around Cardiff—the St Lythans burial chamber, near Wenvoe (about 4 mi (6.4 km) west, southwest of Cardiff City Centre), the Tinkinswood burial chamber, near St. Nicholas, Vale of Glamorgan (about 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Cardiff City Centre), the Cae'rarfau Chambered Tomb, Creigiau (about 6 mi (9.7 km) northwest of Cardiff City Centre) and the Gwern y Cleppa Long Barrow, near Coedkernew, Newport (about 8 ¹⁄₄ mi (13.3 km) northeast of Cardiff City Centre)—shows that these Neolithic people had settled in the area around Cardiff from at least around 6,000 BP, about 1500 years before either Stonehenge or The Egyptian Great Pyramid of Giza was completed.
  In common with the people living all over Great Britain, over the following centuries the people living around what is now known as Cardiff assimilated new immigrants and exchanged ideas of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Celtic cultures. Together with the approximate areas now known as Breconshire, Monmouthshire and the rest of Glamorgan, the area that would become known as Cardiff was settled by a Celtic British tribe called the Silures. There is a group of five tumuli at the top of Mynydd y Garth—near the City and County of Cardiff's northern boundary—thought to be Bronze Age, one of which supports a trig. pillar on its flat top. Several Iron Age sites have been found in the City and County of Cardiff. They are: the Castle Field Camp, east of Graig Llywn, Pontprennau; Craig y Parc enclosure, Pentyrch; Llwynda Ddu Hillfort, Pentyrch; and Caerau Hillfort—an enclosed area of 5.1 ha (13 acres).
  The Roman army invaded Great Britain in May AD 43. The area to the south east of the Fosse Way—between modern day Lincoln and Exeter—was under Roman control by 47. British tribes from beyond this new frontier of the Roman Empire resisted the Roman advance and the Silures, along with Caratacus (Welsh: Caradoc), attacked the Romans in 47 and 48. A Roman legion (thought to be the Twentieth) was defeated in 52 by the Silures.
  Archaeological evidence shows that a settlement had been established by the Silures in central Cardiff in the 50s AD, probably during the period following their victory over the Roman army. The settlement included several large timber framed buildings of up to 45 m (148 ft) by 25 m (82 ft). The exten
caption: St Lythans burial chamber, is a single stone megalithic dolmen, built around 6000 BP
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