PREHISTORIC BRITAIN
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250.000 BC: First inhabitants
50.000 BC: ancestors of the modern
British
10.000 -5.000BC: wanderer-hunter
culture
3.000 BC:Neolithic (New Stone Age )
people or Iberians
2.400 BC : the Beaker people
1.300 BC the henge civilisation becomes
less important
700 BC: the Celts
First evidence:
Two kinds of inhabitants:
1) The earlier group
2) The later group
1 st group made tools from flakes of flint;
2 nd group made tools from a central core
of flint
50.000 BC
• A new type of human being arrived (
they are the ancestors of the modern
British)
-looked similar, but were smaller, with a
life span of only 30 years
10.000-5.000 BC
• Small groups of hunters, fishers and
gatherers peopled Britain
-few had settled homes;
-followed deer;
-warm climate was a disaster.
3.000 BC
• Neolithic people crossed the narrow sea
from Europe and arrived in Britain (either
from the Iberian peninsula or the North
African coast)
- settled homes;
- kept animals;
- made pottery;
- grew corn crops.
The Iberian people (the chalkland
people)
- small, dark, long-headed;
- settled in the western parts of Britain and
Ireland, from Cornwall at the southwest end
of Britain all the way to the far north;
- the forefathers of dark-haired inhabitants of
Wales and Cornwall;
- built great “ barrows” or burial mounds
(made of earth or stone) which are found on
the chalk uplands of south Britain;
The chalkland people
- after 3.000 BC started building great cicles
of earth banks and diches;
- inside: wooden buildings or stone circles;
- were called “henges”;
- were centres of religious, political
economic power;
- Stonehenge (was built over a period of
more than a thousand years).
2.400 BC: the Beaker people
• New groups of people arrived from
Europe:
- became leaders of British society;
- made pottery beakers;
- first individual graves;
- brought the skills to make bronze tools;
- Stonehenge remained the most important
centre and the Beaker people added a
new circle of 30 stone columns connected
by stone lintels
1.300 BC
• about this time the henge civilisation becomes
less important;
• it is overtaken by a new form of society in
southern England: settled farming class;
• family villages appeared;
• fortified enclosures appeared;
• hill-forts replaced henges as the centres of local
power
700 BC: the Celts
• A new group of tall, fair or redhaired, blueeyed people arrived;
• Came from central Europe or from
southern Russia;
- were technically advanced: work with iron;
- drew the older inhabitants westwards into
Wales, Scotland, Ireland;
- controlled all the lowland areas;
the Celts
Importance of the Celts:
-ancestors of people in Highland
Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall;
-the Iberian people took on the Celtic
culture;
-Celtic languages are spoken today
the Celts
• were organized in tribes;
• continued the same kind of agriculture;
• the use of iron technology made it possible
to farm heavier soils;
• continued to use and built hill-forts: filled
with houses inside, which became smaller
towns of the different tribal areas into
which Britain was divided;
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the Celts
• Traded across tribal borders by rivers and
sea;
• Used iron bars as money;
• Were ruled over by a warrior class;
• Druids or priests were important members;
• Women had more independence