Neolithic farmers permanently settled in Craven, bringing domesticated livestock and used those stone axes to clear woodlands, probably by slash-and-burn, to increase areas for grazing and crops. Roman occupation In the first century the Romans, having trouble controlling the Brigantes in the Yorkshire Dales, built forts at strategic points. In Craven one fort, possibly named Olenacum, is at Elslack . Through this fort passes a Roman road linking two other forts: Bremetennacum at Ribchester Lancashire and another at Ilkley Yorkshire. Archaeologists describe the road as running north-east up Ribblesdale about east of Clitheroe, then bending eastwards near , then about north of Barnoldswick to pass into Airedale through the low pass near Thornton-in-Craven. Anglo-Saxon To collect the Danegeld in 991–1016 the Anglo-Saxons divided their territory into tax districts. The Wapentakes of Staincliffe and Ewcross covered the region we call Craven but also areas beyond it such as the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire; and Sedbergh in Cumbria to the North. The Church was still using these areas in the 16th century. Norman Conquest The farmlands were progressively taken from the Anglo-Scandinavian farmers and given by the King to selected Normans. The previous and subsequent landowners were recorded in the Domesday Book along with the area of the ploughland. The Domesday Book The Great Domesday Book of 1086 did not use the later Wapentake district names in this part of England, as it usually did, but instead used the name Craven. The Book included lands further west than any later description: Melling, Wennington and Hornby on the River Lune in Lonsdale and even Holker near Grange over Sands in Cumbria. The historic northwestern boundary of Craven is much disputed. One faction declares that before the Norman Conquest the North of England from coast to coast was administered from York and named The Kingdom of York. By 1086 the Normans had designated only one county in the North of England and that was Yorkshire. One may assume thereby that the Norman Yorkshire of 1086 was much the same as the Kingdom of York of 1065; and the Domesday Book supports this. However the opposing faction proposes that the first Yorkshire was smaller, much as it was up till 1974, and that Amounderness, Cartmel, Furness, Kendale, Copeland and Lonsdale were attached to it in the Domesday Book merely for administrative convenience. Also the Domesday Book does not describe the width of Craven at