Prehistoric Britain

The Rollright Stones
A Neolithic stone circle in the English Midlands (c.2500-2000 BC).

Not until the arrival of the Romans do any written records of English history appear. For the many centuries before, there is only archaeological evidence of Britain's inhabitants.

Stone-Age Britain

	The earliest inhabitants of Britain for whom there is compelling evidence are bands of hunters living in Southern and Western England during the Hoxnian interglacial (about 380,000 to 400,000 BC). (Some very recent excavations of stone tools on the East Anglian coastline suggest human presence as early as 700,000 years ago).
	However, as temperatures again dropped, Britain was abandoned. Although there are signs of human habitation during later interglacials, it was not until roughly 14,000 years ago that occupation became permanent. Some of the first things that Mesolithic Britons did, were to wipe out the lion, the elephant, and the hippopotamus, and to domesticate the dog.
	By about 6000 BC the melting of the ice sheet had created the English Channel, and Britain became an island.
	As early as 4000 BC the British were constructing chambered tombs with large stones (i.e. megaliths). [The first Egyptian pyramid was built at Saccara c. 2600 BC].

Chûn Quoit - a Neolithic tomb in Cornwall

Neolithic immigrants arrived from other parts of Western Europe sometime before 4,000 BC and introduced farming.

Later tomb builders sometimes covered these chambered tombs with earth - they are then called barrows.

The Neolithic inhabitants of England also constructed the largest man-made mound in Europe - Silbury Hill. It is roughly 130 feet high and covers more than 5 acres.
Its purpose is unknown.

Late Neolithic inhabitants (c. 3000-2000 BC) of Norfolk dug mines up to 35 feet deep to reach seams of flint - the basic constituent of their edged weapons and tools.

Despite the introduction of farming, Britain remained only sparsely populated, with less than a million people by 1400 BC.

Bronze Age Britain

	There is no clear division between the Stone and the Bronze Age in Britain. Around 2500 BC the Beaker people (originally from Spain) began to immigrate to Britain and brought metal-working skills with them. They made gold, copper and bronze implements and ornaments.
	It was during the Bronze age (after 2500 BC) that circles of standing stones began to be erected in Britain. By far the most famous is Stonehenge, but at least 900 stone circles survived long enough to be recorded. Many stone circles were erected within existing "henges" - (i.e. circular earthworks consisting of a ditch and bank surrounding a central table).
	The ditch was dug and the earthen bank built at Stonehenge far earlier - around 3000 BC. The stones were erected (and repeatedly moved) between 2500 BC and 1600 BC.

[More about Stonehenge]

The stone circles may have been used to help with the astronomical observations necessary to establish the correct days for seasonal festivals - midsummer solstice, the first day of Spring and so on.
Some archaeologists suggest that the stones themselves might be phallic symbols used in fertility rituals (but the resemblance is generic to most stones - in contrast to stones shaped somewhat like, say, the right knee or the left foot).

The White Horse at Uffington
This image was formed by carving through the turf and exposing the chalk beneath. It probably dates to about 1,000 BC, and is about 375 feet long and 110 feet high.

Around 1400 BC, the climate of Britain started becoming gradually cooler and wetter, and Britain's population declined. Much of the population lived in hill forts.

Iron Age and Celtic Britain

The Celts probably arrived in Britain in two waves: the Goidelic-speaking Celts between 2000 BC and 1200 BC and the Brythonic-speaking sometime in the period 500 BC to 400 BC. (Modern Welsh and Cornish are descended from Brythonic; modern Scottish and Irish Gaelic from the Goidelic). There was also a smaller wave of settlement of Belgic Celts in Southern England during the first century BC - possibly fleeing from the Roman invasions.

The Celtic language has had almost no influence on modern English, being largely obliterated during the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
The ancient Celtic word "uisge " (water) survives in various place names - for example, the River Ouse, and (combined with the Latin word for a camp, castra) the town of Exeter. It is also the root of whisky.

Celts were tall and fair or red-haired; according to the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus, they looked "like wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse's mane."

Carl Wark: a Celtic hill fort in the English Peak District

The Celts could smelt iron, and used their skills to fashion swords that were superior to bronze weapons.

Members of the powerful Atrebates tribe lived both in Gaul and Southern Britain. The Parisii tribe of East Yorkshire were probably related to other Celts in the Seine valley, who gave their name to Paris.

Celtic society was tribal - each kinship group was ruled by a king. Below the king were nobles who were warriors - some of them wealthy enough to afford finely decorated amour like this 1st century BC shield

The priestly class - Druids - had little political power by the period immediately before the Romans.

High-class women sometimes played important political roles in Celtic society.

	Even before the arrival of the Romans, a few towns were developing, though the majority of the population still lived in small farming communities. English agriculture was sufficiently efficient to produce a small surplus for export.
	The Celts of Southern England also mined and sold tin abroad, and minted coins.