Prehistoric Britain
Stone Age people
• 250 000 BC – first evidence of human life
made their tools from flakes of flint
hunter-gatherers
• 3 000 BC – Neolithic (New Stone) Age
Pottery
They were farmers and kept animals
Skara Brae
• 3200 – 2500 BC
• A Neolithic settlement located on the Bay of Skaill,
Orkney, Scotland
• Europe’s most complete surviving Neolithic village
• Often called the Scottish Pompeii
• Older than Stonehenge or the Great Pyramids
The Beaker people
• 2400 – 1800 BC
• Had a special pottery style
Stonehenge
• Great circles of earth banks and ditches =
HENGES
• 3000 – 2000 BC
• Centres of religious, political
and economic power.
Stonehenge
Other henges
• The Ring of Brodgar, Mainland, Orkney,
Scotland
The Celts
• 700 BC – arrived from Central Europe
Iron tools and weapons
Their priests = DRUIDS
Built hill forts
e.g. Maiden Castle
in Dorset
Chalk figures – Hill figures
• The White Horse,
Wiltshire
Cerne Abbas Giant,
Dorchester
Roman Britain
• 55 BC – Julius Caesar’s expedition
• 43 AD – Roman invasion
• 60 AD – BOUDICCA fought against the
Romans
Hadrian’s Wall
Roman Britain
Chadworth Roman Villa
Bath, England
Anglo-Saxon invasion – 430 AD
The Saxon Invasion
• 430 AD
• The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes
= barbaric Teutonic tribes
• The Celts fought against the invaders
e.g. King Arthur - Arthurian Legend
• They drove the Celts to the mountains
„Weallas” or Wales = land of the foreigners
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
King Arthur
Christianity
• Early 4th century – was accepted in the
Roman Empire
• Barbaric Anglo-Saxons
• Christianity continued to be spread in the
Celtic areas
• 598 – Pope Gregory the Great sent a
monk to re-establish Christianity in
England = Augustine became the first
archbishop of Canterbury
• Celtic Church
• Roman Church
was interested in
ordinary people
was interested in
authority and
organisation
Monasteries in Wales,
Ireland, Scotland and
England
Lindisfarne Abbey, Holy
Island
663 – Synod of Whitby
Decided to support the
Roman Church
The Vikings
• King Alfred the Great (871-899)
• King Canute
• Danelaw
Edward the Confessor (1042-1066)
- died without an heir
- was canonised in 1161
• rival claimants to the throne:
- Harold Godwinson
- William, Duke of Normandy
- Harald Hardrada
• Harold (6 January – 14 October 1066)
1066 – The Battle of Hastings
William the Conqueror
(1066 – 1087)
The Bayeux Tapestry, chronicling the
English/Norman battle in 1066
which led to the Norman Conquest
It is exhibited in Normandy