The Earliest Times

The Island
Britain has not always been an island . It became one
only after the end of the last ice age. The temperature
rose and the ice cap melted , flooding the lower-lying
land that is now under the North Sea and the English
Channel.
Britains Prehistory
250,000 BC. First evidence of human life are some
stone tools.

The ice age advanced and Britain became hardly

habitable.
Britains Prehistory
10,000 BC. Ice age drew to a close. Britain was peopled
by small group of hunters and fishers.
 Britains Prehistory
5,000 BC Britain had finally become an island and
became heavily forested. Many animals and plants will
disappear.
 Britains Prehistory
3,000 BC Neolithic (New age stone) It is believed
that people crossed the sea from Europe in small
groups bringing with them some animals, plants,
seeds. They knew how to make pottery (Phoenicians).
Stonehenge

Stonehenge is perhaps the worlds most famous prehistoric monument.

It was built in several stages: the first monument was an early henge
monument, built about 5,000 years ago, and the unique stone circle was
erected in the late Neolithic period about 2500 BC. In the early Bronze
Age many burial mounds were built nearby.
 Britains Prehistory (Bronze age)
2,500 BC. A new group of people arrived. Taller and
stronger that the Neolithic Britons. They had different
workings skills, better weapons and had many metal
working skills. They will be known as The Beaker
People.

Tin + Copper

Bronze
 The Celts (o) (Celtic-Britons)
Around 700 BC, another group of people began to arrive.
Many of them were tall, and had fair or red hair and blue
eyes. These were the Celts, who probably came from
central Europe or further east , from southern Russia, and
had moved slowly westwards in earlier centuries. The
Celts were technically advanced. They knew how to work
with iron, and could make better weapons than the people
who used bronze. The Celts began to control all the
lowland areas of Britain, and were joined by new arrivals
from the European mainland. They continued to arrive in
one wave after another over the next seven hundred years.
Celtic mythology
Pixies

Fairies

Pucks

Albion

Leprechaun
 The Celts
The Celts are important in British history because they
are the ancestors of many of the people in Highland
Scotland. Wales, Ireland, and Cornwall today. The
Iberian people of Wales and Cornwall took on the
new Celtic culture.

Trading (iron bars) Warrior Class

Bard
Political and social Organization
contact
Druids
 The Romans (80 AD)
The Romans had invaded because the Celts of Britain were working with the
Celts of Gaul against them. The British Celts were giving them food, and
allowing them to hide in Britain.
Brought the skills of reading and writing.

They established a Romano British culture.

Built schools, temples, markets.

Modified the Celtic mythology, Eneas arrived and called the island New Troy =
Londinium.

Built Hadrians Wall. (Keep the barbarians away form the Roman settlements).
 The Romans
Romans spent around 400 years in the isle. Brought
Christianity by Joseph of Arimathea and then St. Patricks.

Roman control of Britain came to an end as the empire began to

collapse. The first signs were the attacks by Celts of Caledonia
in AD 367. -> Great Britain / Little Britain.
It is very difficult to be sure how many people were living in
Britain when the Romans left. Probably it was as many as five
million. partly because of the peace and the increased economic
life which the Romans had brought to the country. The new
wave of invaders changed all that.