This is in large part inspired from my reading of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories which is a fantastic book series
Looking at the fascinating subject of British history, strictly an outsiders perspective
The Geography of Britain
Located today in some of the northernmost reaches of europe, between the atlantic a calmer ocean, and a much stormier stormy sea, Britain is a rather large soil covered rock sitting in between the Atlantic and the North Sea right to the North of Frankia. It is geographically quite a unique place. The gulf stream a strong north atlantic current means that despite being on the same latitude line as Moscow, (and other harsh frigid wastes of Canada and Russia) London's weather is a great deal soggier, than either. A condition that lends itself fantastically to the practice of agriculture, and the emergence of civilisation.
The Peopling of Britain
The continous confirmed peopling of Britain with modern humans, especially with anatomically modern humans, and more so with societies which would be recognisable to us, is typically placed towards the end of the latest ice age (the one which we are technically still currently in). ~10,000 years ago, since then Britain has been near continously occupied. A thing to note however is that earlier, much much earlier than that there were other hominids, species of humans who are not anatomically modern humans, who occupied this piece of land, which for an early part of it's history was not an island.
Doggerland
For a part of it's history, the North Sea, was not a sea and instead a great northern plain at the very north of Europe (even today the sea is rather shallow, enabling the construction of large engineering projects like the North Sea ), during the great cold ice ages, when massive portions of the the planet's water was trapped in massive ice sheets, the north sea would reveal itself to be shallow, and from it would emerge a land we now called Doggerland. Stretching from what is now Denmark to England, both of them being rather hilly regions at the end of this plain, Doggerland would have been a rather lush tundra, there is a wealth of archaeological evidence for human habitation in Doggerland, spear tips, arrows, marked animal skulls, all instruments of waging war against megafauna. Doggerland in some sense connected the people of what was to be Britain with the broader European landspace. Doggerland would - as the glaciers receded - disappear under the waters of the North Sea, until about ~6000BCE when Doggerland finally disappears forever severing off Britain from the rest of Europe; and what follows culturally is a remarkable process of connection despite separation.
New Stone
Neolithic people are supposed to have come to Britain from two primary routes, one from a familiar to us route, which will later be used by other people of legends, through what is now Germany, Netherlands, and another through what is today spain. But they both came from the same place in the near east, bringing along with them the crops of their home. The dry weather loving barley, and wheat.
With their new stone, and even more revolutionary technology of agriculture, these new people, would soon replace the pre-existing societies of Britain, the hunter gatherers, either being assimilated, or wiped out by the sheer majority of the neolithic farmers. The tail of the stone age, however will bring in new societes, new cultures, and most importantly, the advent of metal tools, along with a new, more familiar, people.
Early Metal, Entering the Bronze Age
The bronze age represented the next big advance in human civilisation, as man unlocked the secrets of metal working. Metal working is critical because unlike stone, metal is malleable, can be beaten into thin sheets, and made into sharp points. Good for weapons of war, whether to wage against the land at the edge of a plough, or against another person at the tip of a spear.
One of the earliest metals humans unlocked the secrets of was copper, but copper is slightly flawed, it is far too soft to make good implements of war. However, one way to make it harder and more durable is to add to copper, another rather well known metal, Tin, A material found in great abundance in what is today Cornwall. The resulting alloy, called bronze, is much harder, more durable, and significant enough to get a whole period of human history (something deserving a blog post of it's own) to be named after it. Bronze age is fascinating because of the immense leap in civilisation that is made throughout the era. One of the first documented series of urbanisation happens in the Bronze age. Across the world, people are settling down into cities, where food production beyond the immediate need has become a possibility. In the near East, a thriving trade economy is emerging. Linking locally Egypt, to Syria, to Greece, and globally to places like Mesopotamia in Iraq, Indus Valley in South Asia, and Britain, and the Nordics in North Europe.
Britain is of critical importance in the Bronze age trade network. Tin, a core component of Bronze is abundant in Cornwall, and that Britain key to the manufacture of bronze. British Tin has been found far towards the south of Europe and in the Near East, and correspondingly goods from these places in Britain. Also in the Bronze a key pattern emerges, Migrants coming to the British Isles, and making the islands their home, then diffusing themselves with the local culture, and ending with the emergence of a distinct British culture.
In this age, this will be the Bell Beaker Culture. People usually assumed to be from Iberia (Spain, and Portugal) who will bring with them a great genetic drift to the island, along with their language, originated from the Yamnaya culture (precursors to the Indo Europeans), and soon their descendants, now thoroughly a part of this Island, will emerge from the end of the Bronze age as another very different group of people. One which will be of immense significance to history, not int he least part for their mastery of the black metal of Iron.
West or East
Towards the approach of the iron age, a new people were beginning to make themselves known across Europe, we now call the Celts. It was traditionally assumed that the Celts originated in the South of Germany, places like Hallstatt, were the earliest places of Celtic settlement, and until recently believed to be the place of origin of these cultures. There is however, another exciting theory, which posits that the Celtic culture originated from the Atlantic Coast of Europe, from Spain to Scotland, and then radiated outwards towards the continental europe.
While the traditional theory is rather well known, where celtic originates in South of Germany, East of France, and then spreads therefrom. In Britain, this is carried out by a variant of cultural diffusion, where native British culture adopts Celtic ways keenly but without significant migrations happening, a migration in the form of ideas more than people leading to the establishment of a culture, not in the genetics of people, and in their minds.
The other theory of Celts from the west, postulates that celtic traditions emerge in Britain, France, and Iberia, and then diverge from there, eventually to cover all of France, Iberia, and parts of Southern Germany. This counter-conventional theory is nevertheless very exciting, and probably merits a blogpost of it's own, which will come later. But it is very interesting to speculate, of a situation where this coastal culture, essentially ends up being the cultural precursor to people who will eventually sack Rome, Delphi, settle down in Anatolia, and eventually insulate themselves in Britain and Ireland as the last remaining vestiges of a cultural constant from the Bronze age.
Rome Comes Knocking ...
To be continued in a later blogpost.