ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out an approach to the archaeology of a particular locality in north Wales, in which landscape evidence for the past is considered in the light of economic organization and social identity. It goes on to suggest ways in which such an approach can contribute to a broader understanding of historic landscape and society. Moel Tryfan therefore retains many of the characteristics of a once common type of landscape, a type which, because it bears the mark of agriculture as well as industrialization, should furnish evidence for both continuity and disjunction. Much of the working was in the black economy, with informal partnerships either quarrying in the pits themselves or re-working the rubble heaps and buildings for useable slate rock, leaving their mark in form of their tiny irregular huts, and the piles of fine trimming waste around them.
