The third instalment of Peter Bere’s exploration of Monmouthshire through the ages.

New Stone Age settlement and the future Monmouth.

Monmouth’s New Stone Age (the Neolithic). Here, the first farmers were living and working on the wet and boggy land of the receding Lake – especially around Rockfield and Monmouth. Plant remains with hazel nuts and seeds were also preserved in the wet conditions while in some places human bodies (‘bog bodies’) have also been preserved – but not yet in Monmouth!

Radio-carbon dating of the worked timbers from the new estates off Watery Lane laces in the lower parts of Monmouth have all been proved to be centred closely dated to around 5,000 years before the present (Scottish Universities Research Unit).