"Ancient Rhiw"

Man first settled in Rhiw during the Stone Age, we know this as stone axes and flint blades have been discovered on Mynydd Rhiw and Nant Gadwen. These early settlers came from Ireland, in those days travel was much easier by sea than land. The Roman geographer Ptolemy calls Llyn Ganganorum Promotorum, the Gangi were a stone age tribe in Ireland, also there is evidence based on the Ogam stones found at Anelog, ogam was an early form of writing found in Ireland. It's easy to see how they came to settle in Nant Gadwen as they lived by hunting and fishing and found shelter in the Gorge above the sandy cove.

"Comb,  Sinerary Urn and Knife discovered at Rhiw in the fifties"

During the first millennium many people came and went here, in Llyn at that time was very central to the Irish sea routes and evidence of the Celtic way of life can be found all along Cardigan Bay, Cornwall and Brittany. Just recently genetic evidence shows that the Welsh are closely related to the people of Northern Spain. In the  fifth and sixth centuries the Celts came to embrace Christianity and many of Llyn's churches are dedicated to celtic saints e.g. Hywyn, Gwynhoydl.

The neolithic cromlechs, the Bronze age cairns, the cinerary urn and the Iron Age hillforts all go to show that there was an organised society in Rhiw from the primitive hunters of the Stone age to the more organised farmers and craftsmen of the Iron age.

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