5. The Age of Bronze
The only recorded evidence of human habitation during the very long Bronze Age (at least 1500 years) in the vicinity of Harley is a single Bowl Barrow burial site located on the edge of a field sloping up to towards Wenlock Edge, near the present day tree line some distance from the village.
This shows a grassy mound with a small quarried area just behind it – a Pond Pit which is where the material was excavated to cover the Bowl Barrow. This has not been excavated, and is the only Bowl Barrow to be fully recorded. Its contents remain unknown.
The Archeological Record records 93 other Bowl Barrows but these are not located.
It is known that the dead were cremated in the Bronze Age
In the Bronze Age hundreds of stone circles were built, including Stonehenge. About 40% of these, it is estimated, were preceded by Timber Henges with villages and hamlets often having a local one. Remains also include Tumuli and Cairns, both being markers for burial sites.
Also there were many trackways connecting places usually for the purposes of trade. In Shropshire on the Clun-Clee Ridgeway thousands of flints and axe heads have been found and reported by acclaimed local Archeologist Lilly Chitty. This was an important trading route until the 8th C. Parts are still in use today. Two Churches stand on the route, at Clunbery and Onibery.
The late Bronze Age was beset with climate change. Competition for land caused tribal warfare and insecurity, and the consequent construction of hill forts towards the west. King Offa ruled over Mercia and was responsible for the construction of the 180 km long Offas Dyke along the present day Welsh border. Completed in 785 BC.
The Trackway connecting Anglesey with the Severn Valley via Oswestry facilitating the trade from N. Ireland across the Irish Sea was named Ffordd Saeson and operated until the early Saxon period. In Shropshire on the Portway track, there are Tumuli (burial chambers) and there are stone circles at Mitchell’s Fold.
We do know that, around 500 BC this central area of Britain was well settled, although Shropshire itself, relative to southern Britain, like today, was not very populated. In the late Bronze Age early Iron Age, the further development of agriculture led to the appearance of the settled village.
Trevor Rowley, Villages in the Landscape
Pollen evidence confirms the importance of the Bronze Age rather than the Neolithic for the expansion of agriculture, with major long term forest clearance being made for the first time. However, on the wetter heavier soils very extensive woods remained uncleared throughout the Bronze Age