About 60,000 B.C., our paleolithic hunters with chipped-stone weapons would be obliged to travel further to the north. New savages with round heads and polished-stone weapons would make life in Renfrewshire too uncertain and too diversified by massacres. These last possessed seed corn, a few fruit trees as well as goats, cattle, and perhaps a few hardy, shaggy ponies. At first these settlers would be obliged to live in a lake dwelling, say in Linwood Moss, which is close at hand. They would then drive their cattle over the surrounding district, and camp in slightly-built villages. Near at hand, probably on the hill, they would build a (round) camp or fort, where they could fly for safety in the continual fights and invasions of the period. Sooner or later a village would be built near Pennell Brae. One summer day the villagers attacked the wood that covered it; they cut down all the small brushwood and hacked through the bark of every big tree. After a few weeks, when the trees were dead, the wood was set on fire. Then a rough fold made of rude wattle and daub was formed, and every night the cattle and sheep were driven in. After three or four years, this fold would be ploughed up by exceedingly rude instruments. Barley or certain kinds of wheat would be grown year after year until the crop was not worth gathering. When that happened, another fold would be ploughed up. Probably the whole of Pennell Brae went through this rude sort of agricultural treatment at one time or another. At the same time goats, cattle, and the demand for firewood, obtained in the most reckless and wasteful manner, would have very seriously interfered with the forest. Although no doubt great changes for the better were introduced, the spearmen of Wallace of Elderslie close by had their "infield" land, which was practically the sheepfold as above described, and their "outfield" or grazing commons. Even down to 1745 the above system was practised (see below). But when men's minds were stirred up and invigorated by the great Revolution of 1788-1820, all sorts of new agricultural discoveries were made. Yet the cornfield on Pennell Brae was probably not drained or enclosed by stone walls and hedges until 1830 to 1840! About 1870, it was more profitable to its owner than it has ever been since, though even now it forms part of our British farmlands which yield, on the whole, a larger amount of oats per acre than those of any other country in the world (except possibly Denmark). Let us however look a little closer into the long, long period during which the "fire and stone-axe methods" of farming prevailed. Before the Romans landed there seem to have been no towns.[69] There was but little cultivation, for the Britons wore skins and lived chiefly on milk and flesh. [69] Mr. Chisholm, _Geographical Journal_, November, 1897.