Britain’s Prehistory. Ice Age
At the previous lecture you got to know about Britain and the British Isles. But you should know that Britain had not always been an island. It became one only after the end of the last Ice Age (ледниковый период). The temperature rose and the ice cap melted, flooding the lower-lying land that is now under the North Sea and the English Channel.
The Ice Age was not just one long equally cold period. There were warmer times when the ice cap retreated, and colder periods when the ice cap reached as far south as the River Thames. Our first evidence of human life is a few stone tools, dating from one of the warmer periods, about 250,000 BC. These simple objects show that there were two different kinds of inhabitants. The earlier group made their tools similar to stone tools found across the north European plain as far as Russia. The other group made their tools by method spread from Africa to Europe. However, the ice advanced and Britain became hardly habitable until another milder period, around 50,000 BC. During this time another type of human beings seems to have arrived, who was the ancestors of the modern British. These people looked similar to the modern British, but were probably smaller and reached the age of 30 only.
Around 10,000 BC, as the Ice Age drew to a close, Britain was peopled by small groups of hunters, gatherers and fishers. Few had settled homes and they seemed to have followed herds of deer, which provided them with food and clothing. By about 5000 BC Britain had finally become an island, and had also become heavily forested. the island lay solitary, in the great expanse of water. The islanders knew nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the word knew nothing of them.
It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient people, famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to the British Isles, and found that people there produced tin and lead. The Phoenicians traded with the islanders for these metals, and gave the islanders some other useful things in exchange. The Phoenicians sailed over to the continental coasts and spread the news that they had been to those white cliffs across the water, which could be seen in fine weather, and which was called Britain. They
told about the place and the people who lived there, and they tempted some of the continental people to come over as well.
Neolithic People
About 3000 BC Neolithic (or New Stone Age) people crossed the narrow sea from Europe in small round boats of bent wood covered with animal skins. Each could carry one or two persons. These people kept animals and grew corn crops, and know how to make pottery. They probably came from either the Iberian (Spanish) peninsula or even the North African coast. They were small, dark, and long-headed people, and may be the forefathers of dark-haired inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall today. They settled in the western part of Britain and Ireland, from Cornwall at the southwest end of Britain all the way to the far north.
These were the first of several waves of invaders before the first arrivals of the Romans in 55 BC. It used to be thought that these waves of invaders marked fresh stages in British development. However, although they must have brought new ideas and methods, it is now thought that the changing pattern of Britain’s prehistory was the result of local economic and social forces.
After 3000 BC the Britons started building great circles of earth banks and ditches (канавы). Inside they built wooden buildings and stone circles. These “henges”, as they are called, were centres of religious, political and economic power. The most spectacular was Stonehenge, which was built in separate stages over a period of more than a thousand years. The precise purposes of Stonehenge remain a mystery, but during the second phase of building, after about 2400 BC, huge bluestones were brought to the site from south Wales. This could only have been achieved because the political authority of the area surrounding Stonehenge were recognized over a very large area, indeed probably over the whole of the British Isles. The movement of these bluestones was an extremely important event, the story that was passed from generation to generation.
The Beaker People
After 2400 BC new groups of people arrived in southern Britain from Europe. They were round-headed and strongly built, taller than Neolithic Britons. It is not known whether they invaded by armed force, or whether they were invited by Neolithic Britons because of their military and metal-working skills. Their influence was soon felt and, as a result, they became leaders of British society. Their arrival is marked by the first individual graves, furnished with pottery beakers (горшки), from which these people get their name: the “Beaker” people.
The beaker people brought with them from Europe new cereal, barley (ячмень), which could grow almost anywhere. They also brought skills to make bronze tools and these began to replace stone ones. But they accepted many of the old ways too. Stonehenge remained the most important centre until 1300 BC.
However, from about 1300 BC the henge civilization seemed to have become less important, and was overtaken by a new form of society in southern England, that of a settled farming class. The new farmers grew wealthy, more important and powerful, because they learned to enrich the soil with natural waste materials so that it didn’t become poor and useless. Family villages and fortified enclosures appeared across the landscape, and the old central control of Stonehenge and the other henges was lost. From this time power seems to have shifted to the Thames valley and southeast Britain. Hill-fort replaced henges as the centres of local power.
The Celts
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, from the territory of modern France and Belgium, or further east, from southern Russia, and had moved slowly westwards, in earlier centuries. Their culture goes back to 1200 BC. By the time they invaded Britain, the Celts were the most powerful people north of the Alps. They were technically advanced, and knew how to work with iron, and could make better weapons than the people who used bronze. It is possible that they drove many of the older inhabitants westwards into Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Celts began to control all the lowland areas of Britain, and were joined by new arrivals from the European mainland.
The Celts were important in Britain’s 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. Celtic languages are still spoken. The Celts were organized into different tribes. They used iron technology and more advanced methods of farming. They still continued to use and build hill-forts, which remained the centres for local groups. The insides were filled with houses, and they became the simple economic capitals and smaller “towns” of different tribal areas into which Britain was now divided.
The Celts were very fond of horses. Even now the standard of Kent is the picture of a white horse. They have ever been celebrated in history for the construction of war-chariots (военная колесница). It’s a two-wheel horse-driven vehicle, which contained one man to drive and two or three
others to fight – all standing up. The horses that drew them were so well trained that they would tear, at full gallop, over the most stony ways, and even through the woods. You should know that the Celts’ enemies were crushed and cut to pieces, because of the swords, which were fastened to the wheels and stretched out beyond the car on each side.
The Celts had the religion of the Druids. They worshiped the Serpent, the Sun, and the Moon, as well as some of the Heathen (языческие) gods and goddesses. The Druid ceremonies included the human sacrifice. The Druids could not read or write, but they memorized all the important teachings, the tribal laws and history, medicine and other knowledge necessary in Celtic society.
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