Pootler

  In the last post, I covered the arrival of people from the start to the time at which the hunter-gatherers seem to have been elbowed out of the picture. For you lovers of jargon, that is the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods.  I tend to believe everything from Hollywood so m y take on it is a simple progression from Raquel Welch, in her fetching furs in the film 'One Million Years B.C', to the urban Stone Age sophistication of the Flintstones.  These 'Neolithic' incomers were our first farmers and the first humans to have any real effect on the landscape. They took their time getting here; farming is thought to have originated in the East some 6000 years earlier and edged in our direction at less than a mile a year. Farming can support more people than hunter-gathering, so the headcount grew rapidly. W hile their predecessors adjusted their lives to survive in the landscape they found, the newcomers  shaped it to suit their needs. T his was the start of the clear...

  I have avoided the human story in the blog so far because there wasn't one  until around a million years ago. And I will not labour over it now because there isn't much to see. The visible impact of our species of  homo, who we laughingly call 'sapiens' or 'wise', has only been recent. Notwithstanding, for the sake of the narrative,  I want to tip my cap to our more direct predecessors, who,  one day around 5000 years ago, got to work doing a bit of landscape gardening and monument building,   Summary first, then a tad more detail for the interested.   Britain was still very much connected to Europe when early human hunter-gatherers arrived around 900,000 years ago. It wasn't a permanent stay; the country was virtually uninhabitable for long periods during the ice-ages. During the warmer breaks the ice melted, the sea levels rose and those connections to Europe shrank.  Neanderthals appeared around 400,000 years ago. They are an under-...

  GPX File of the Route :   High Chilterns & Horrible Henrys  This route covers some of the upland villages in the Southern Chilterns.It heads out of Goring using the Icknield Way and climbs along the open country on the east side of the Thames Valley and onwards to picturesque Ewelme. Thence onwards, ascending the Chiltern Hills circling clockwise past the manors of Stonor and Grey’s Court, then through Stoke Row on the return to Goring. It is almost entirely based on quiet and minor roads and although there are quite a few climbs, none are steep. For more detail see the Route Tips below. Zoom In Highlights are: Goring itself, check the view from the bridge. Views across the Goring Gap from the valley side. Historic Ewelme & Alice Chaucer Beautiful deciduous ‘ancient’ woodlands Stonor Park Grey’s Court, an Elizabethan Manor The Maharajah’s Well. Odd enough to get into Atlas Obscura! I confess...