Prehistory of the British Isles

Dear Training Center Raya-London friends, all of us, who are engaged in your education would like to assist you in learning English by creating, especially for you, interesting and entertaining articles, which would stimulate you to read more.

We believe that it is always interesting to be familiar with the people’s history and place you live in, and whom you share your daily life with. That is why we will tell you about the olden days when the first tribes settled in the British Isles.

More than 2 million years ago, the huge ice sheets which covered vast areas of land and sea to the West and to the North of Europe started to melt, resulting in a land (an isthmus) connecting the continent and the South parts of the island nowadays. This currently sunken land was called Doggerland. The isthmus helped the Nomad tribes of hunter-gatherers to settle in the new lands about 8000 years BC. They chased deer, wild boars and cattle, to eat. Approximately 1500 years later, the seawater completely transformed the dense woodland into islands.

About 4000 years BC, newcomers sailed to the islands by boat. They had already settled in and started to cut down the local forests, in order to have enough space for planting and cultivating crops and enough land for tamed animals. They were so successful in surviving that until 1400 BC Britain’s population was about 1 million. Different things like surviving, mineral resources, and trading attracted other big groups of European tribes like Belgae, Gauls, and Celts to come to the new land. The Iron Age left us a great number of well-crafted different metal animals’ images, plants and people that even reached the European continent.

The religious leaders on the island, the Druids (translated as the Pine people) did their sacred actions, and the well-known Stonehenge monument was related to them.

Meanwhile, the Roman Empire, which consistently broadened its borders, reached the British islands and conquered the South. They build the Hadrian Wall to separate their land from the North, inhabited by hostile tribes including the Irish Hibernians and the Northern Pixies.

With the degradation of the Roman Empire in the 5^th century BC, the Anglo-Saxons arrived. According to scientists, they were used by the Brits as mercenaries to stop the Hibernians and the Northern Pixies invasion. Soon the Anglo-Saxons began to dominate the island, even though some investigations proved that the genetic inheritance of the people of the British Isles is still dominated by the Brits’ genes.

Another very warlike nation who participated in forming the nation were the Vikings who arrived by sea in the 9^th century and spread out their culture and values.

As a newly emerged land, Britain attracted brave adventurers and people who could survive during prehistorical difficulties. All of its “conquerors” marked the island with their genes and cultures in order to form the cultural and ethnic diversity which we see today all around us. We, the Bulgarians, also contributed to this diversity by transferring our customs, dreams of a better life, and even traditional food.

Dear friends, please don’t miss this and the upcoming articles, and don’t forget to switch the article to its English version from the button to learn the new words! See you soon!

Author: Iveta Radeva

Photo: wirestock