prehistoric britain

Prehistoric Britain stretches from 42,000 BP (before present) to AD 43, when Roman armies under Emperor Claudius invaded to turn the island into a Roman province. That the end of “prehistoric” Britain has arrived so recently may seem odd, but it’s because prior to the Romans, Britons didn’t leave behind any written histories (or written languages at all).

Britain in the Stone Age

Early Britons on the hunt

Human beings first reached Britain around 42,000 years before the present, and they roamed the island as hunters and gatherers until about 25,000 years ago, when they were forced to leave Britain because of the last Ice Age. Ice sheets drenched northern Britain, turning the climate into a cold-blasted and uninhabitable tundra. The sea levels dropped so much that an ancient land bridge, known as Doggerland, stretched across the modern North Sea to connect Britain to the continent. The last Ice Age ended around 15,000 years ago, and people began crossing Doggerland to retake Britain. Major food sources included wild horses, red deer, and hares, along with rhinos, hyena, and the last vestiges of the mammoths. Another brief cold spell drained Britain of most of its inhabitants, but the climate began to warm around 11,600 years ago (marking the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene).

The population of Britain began to steadily rise. As the sea levels rose, Doggerland turned into a string of islands before being completely submerged around 5600 BC. Britain thus became an island again, and has remained an island ever since. As the climate continued, the open spaces of the arctic environment were replaced with forests of pine, birch, and alder. The open spaces had given room for large herds of reindeer and wild horse, but as woodlands spread across the island, the peoples’ diets consisted primarily of boar (wild pig) and less social animals (who didn’t need large tracts of roaming land) such as elk, red deer, roe deer, and aurochs (wild cattle). Around this time the dog was domesticated to help in the woodland hunts.

Britain in the Stone Age

The inhabitants of this time were highly mobile, roaming over wide tracts of land and carrying toolkits. Stone Age sites of this period reveal tools made of flint, bone, and antler; and jewelry made of amber, animal teeth, and mammoth ivory. There’s ample evidence that the tribes of eastern Britain traded with the tribes across the Channel, and people began to move into modern-day Scotland. Archaeology implies that nomadic hunter-gatherers, forced by the changing environment to adapt their lifestyles, began building semi-permanent settlements between which they alternated during the seasons.

By 4000 BC these semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers were embracing farming; though older historians interpreted this as an invasion of Neolithic farmers from the continent, archaeology tells us that Britain’s “Neolithic Revolution” came about not due to an invasion of foreigners but to a gradual embracing of Neolithic ideas. As farming and husbandry were further embraced, woodland was cut down and grassland increased.

Around this time (ca 4400 BC), British peoples began building their infamous earthworks: they started with long barrows and causewayed enclosures; around 3300-2900 BC they embraced cursus monuments, chamber tombs, and stone circles; and around 2900-2200 BC, new enclosures called “henges” were built, including the infamous Stonehenge, Avebury, and Silbury Hill. About this time industrial flint making took off, and trade between Britain and continent increased.

Britain in the Bronze Age

The beginning of the Bronze Age in Europe facilitated a need for tin (which was mixed with copper to make bronze), and because southern Britain had lots of tin, that part of the island experienced a trade boom around 1600 BC. The Bronze Age in Britain is known for the “Beaker Invasion,” referring to a type of culture characterized by “beakers” (a type of pottery) among other things. Though old historians believed the Beaker Invasion was an invasion of foreigners who swept through Britain, archaeology implies that this, like the emergence of farming and husbandry, was an invasion of ideas. The Beaker Phenomenon was a cultural fad that swept the continent and reached into Britain, and it was embraced by elites who wished to make their status known.

Britain in the Iron Age

The Bronze Age in Britain came to an end around 750 BC when iron working techniques arrived from southern Europe. Iron was stronger and more plentiful than bronze, so it was widely embraced. The advent of iron revolutionized not just warfare but agriculture: iron tipped ploughs could churn up soil quicker and deeper than wooden or bronze ones, and iron axes could clear woodlands far more efficiently. It’s speculated that around 500 BC most Britons were speaking what’s known as “Common Brythonic.”

Iron Age Britons lived in organized tribal groups ruled by a chieftain. As people became more numerous (due to increasing birth rates, migration from the continent, and the ability to feed more people because of farming), wars broke out between opposing tribes. Hill forts were built throughout the land; nearly 2000 have been discovered, but most hill forts fell out of use around 350 BC while the remaining ones were strengthened. By this time the Britons were known as excellent wheat farmers, and their trade with the continent was dominated by hunting dogs, animal skins, and slaves (from the numerous wars between themselves). Prior to the Punic Wars (264 to 146 BC), the Carthaginian Empire dominated Mediterranean trade; in the wake of the Punic Wars, Rome took over this trade, and she carried her goods into the Atlantic. Trade with Rome brought about changes in British life and society: around 100 BC iron bars began to be used as currency, coinage was developed, and consumers warmed up to Roman products. This has been called the “first” Roman invasion.As the Roman Empire pressed west from Italy, Germanic refugees from Gaul (modern-day France and Belgium) fled to safety across the Channel. These Gauls were known as the Belgae, and their migrations to Britain reached their zenith around 50 BC as Caesar was subduing the future Roman province. The Belgae settled along the eastern coast of Britain between 200 BC and AD 43; a Gallic tribe known as the Parisi, who had cultural links to the area around Paris, settled in northern England. By AD 43, the major tribal power-players of Britain included the Durotriges, the Atrebates, the Dumnonii, the Ordovices, the Silures, the Iceni, the Catuvellauni, and the Trinovantes. The Romans would use these tribes, often at variance with one another, to their own advantage—Roman Britain would be won not merely by force but largely by diplomacy.