A few scatters of worked flints, a handful of burnt mounds, a small stone circle and Bronze Age burial cairns are the only evidence for the first inhabitants of the dales, the earliest of whom lived by hunting and gathering rather than farming. Above Reeth fragments of ruined co-axial stone walls show that large areas of what is now moorland had been subdivided for farming by 500 BC. Lower down in the valley sides the earthwork remains of several small settlements of Romano-British date, some partially surrounded by the remains of their fields, can still be seen.

The large cross -valley dykes at Grinton probably represent the boundary between a native post-Roman kingdom in Upper Swaledale and the area colonised by Anglians in the lower valley. Norse place names such as Thwaite and Gunnerside in the upper dale indicate another wave of settlers, probably in the tenth century.

The Norman Conquest resulted in further changes. Large areas were devoted to hunting but extensive areas of lynchets, some of which still survive around Reeth and Marske, show that arable farming was also practised. Much land was granted to the Church, especially Rievaulx Abbey and Bridlington Priory ; the two nunneries actually in the dale, Marrick Abbey and Ellerton Priory, were less important landowners.



                 

Many of the present villages and hamlets have developed from the vaccaries and farmsteads owned by the monasteries and from clearings in the hunting forests. The present pattern of relatively small farms however stems from the break up of the monastic estates and a decline in communal farming in the early sixteenth century. This also stimulated other economic activities, notably the development of lead mining. Farming and mining were closely inter-linked but the collapse of the industry in the late nineteenth century led to a dramatic fall in the population. (See also Built Heritage)

Today farming has the greatest impact on the landscape but the characteristic pattern of field barns and walls and hay meadows is largely a product of the last two hundred years. The Pennine Dales Environmentally Sensitive Area [hyperlink to map as on the fact sheet] was designated in 1986 to provide support for traditional farming practices in the area. A Barns and Walls Project run by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority provides additional grants to restore field barns.