Studia Celtica 41

The paper examines the evolution of the upland and inland part of the Gower landscape in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing on the hill of Cefn Drum and the adjacent valleys. It describes the range of structures found within a landscape of `sheepcotes'. The excavation of a small domestic building, a pillow mound, a haybarn, and lengths of field wall are described and the nature of the local fulling mills briefly examined. The study of a number of local place names demonstrates that the first, probably seasonally occupied, farmsteads were founded in the upper sections of the valleys in the late-sixteenth century. It is proposed that the farmsteads became permanently occupied in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Eventually, settlements were founded further down the valley or on the hilltops themselves. The growing demand for grazing land as population increased is thought to lie behind this pattern, whilst the deterioration of the weather, culminating in the `Little Ice Age', may have brought this episode of settlement on Cefn Drum to an end.

The article analyses the possible evidence for written British Celtic in Roman Britain, drawing on analysis of inscriptions on curse tablets from Uley and Bath and particularly that of Tabellae Sulis 14 and 18.

The author seeks to challenge the traditional view that the uplands of Wales during the early modern period were characterised by economic deprivation and agricultural difficulty. Evidence is presented of material prosperity in rural Wales during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, with particular reference to the area of Nant Colwyn, Beddgelert, Gwynedd.

The author discusses the place-name Ruihm or Ruoihm, mentioned in the Historia Brittonum as the Welsh name of Thanet in northeast Kent.