Download The origin of British culture

The origin of British culture
Britain’s Prehistory
Liceo Scientifico “A. Einstein”
Classe 3^A
A.S 2012/2013
Lavoro realizzato da: Simionato Eleonora e Soranzo Nicoletta
From Neolithic to Bronze Age 8000 - 800 BC

The introduction of farming was one of the
biggest changes in human history

Over the millennia there were a lot of climate
change: after the latest ice age Britain became an
island

They descendants of Homo Sapiens

The introduction of farming was the result of a
huge migration: it wasn’t a rapid change

They lived by fishing, hunting and collecting fruit,
nuts, berries, etc.

The Late Bronze Age (1250-800 BC) is marked by
the arrival of new styles of metalwork and
pottery, but otherwise life continued much as
before
Iron Age, 800 BC - AD 43

The Iron Age saw the gradual introduction of iron
working technology

Studies of Iron Age tended to see foreign
invasions

The most visible remains are hill forts

Bog bodies: show evidence of a violent death, and
possible ritual or sacrificial killing

Roman influence the western Mediterranean and
southern France
Stonehenge and Stone Age life

Stonehenge is a circular arrangement of standing
stones built in prehistoric times and located near
Salisbury

It was a place of worship and ritual

Stonehenge offered a way to establish calendar
dates when no other method existed

Stonehenge attracted healers and medicine men

Society in 2500 BC was mobile
People of Britain: tribes

Before Roman times, 'Britain' was just a
geographical entity and had no political meaning
and no single cultural identity

The first modern humans were hunter-gatherers

There were a lot of different societies and culture

The Celts probably came from Central Europe
and were technically advanced

Almost everyone in Britannia was legally and
culturally 'Roman‘

Most of Britannia was taken over by 'Germanic'
kingdoms

Britain has always been home to multiple peoples.
Death and Burial

Early Bronze Age there were over 2,500 years
older than the Roman graves

Some of the objects hint how he was dressed or
adorned when he was buried

Bronze Age Britons were practising the art of
mummification at the same time as 'mummy
culture' was in full swing in Pharaonic Egypt

Mummies were important ancestral figures
Life in Iron Age

The changes and technological innovations that
occurred were every bit as evolutionary as those
that have occurred in the last 800 years

Iron Age society was primarily agricultural and
animals aided the family

They had individual houses of stone with garden
plots, clustered along a street

The religious festivals would have followed the
same seasonal pattern, based around the
agricultural year

The traditions may have been passed down orally,
and written at this later date.

There were special deposits may have been the
result of rituals or ceremonies, including feasts,
possibly from these seasonal festivals.

The druids were the Celts' priests, responsible
for all sorts of religious ceremonies

It was an essentially rural world of farms and
villages, one that had no economic, political or
religious need to build palaces, cities, major tombs
or ceremonial sites such as stone circles