City and County of Swansea: History
=== Ancient history ===
The area around Swansea has a unique archaeological history dating back to the Palaeolithic. Finds at Long Hole Cave on the Gower Peninsula have been interpreted as those of the first modern humans in Britain, and the same area is also home to the oldest ceremonial burial in Western Europe, discovered at Paviland in 1823 and dated to 22,000 BC. The area also has many Bronze Age and Iron Age sites, such as the burial mound at Cillibion and the hill forts at Llwynheiernin and Cil Ifor. There are also the remains of a Roman villa also on the Gower peninsula.
The area that would become Swansea was known as the Cantref Eginog in ancient times, located on the eastern edge of the cwmwd (commote) of Gwyr, the easternmost cantref of Ystrad Tywi. This area was noted for its valuable land and was highly contested by the early Welsh kingdoms. During the Viking Age, the mouth of the Tawe became a focus for trade, and a trade post may have been founded sometime between the 9th and 11th centuries.
The settlement remained under Welsh control until the Norman invasion of Wales, when Iestyn ap Gwrgant ceded the settlement as part of the new Lordship of Gower to Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick in the early 1100s. The Lordship included land around Swansea Bay as far as the River Tawe, the manor of Kilvey beyond the Tawe, and the peninsula itself.
In the following years, Henry built Swansea Castle c. 1106, and minted coins bearing the names Swensi, Sweni and Svenshi c. 1140. Swansea was designated chief town of the lordship and received its first borough charter sometime between 1158 and 1184 from William de Newburgh, 3rd Earl of Warwick. This charter contains the earliest reference in English to Sweynesse and gave it the status of a borough, granting the townsmen (called burgesses) certain rights to develop the area. In 1215 King John granted a second charter, in which the name appears as Sweyneshe. A town seal which is believed to date from this period names the town as Sweyse. Another charter was granted in 1304. …