The History of Britain. Lesson 1

1.

The History of Britain
Lesson 1

2.

Earliest Times
The foundation stones:
The Island
Britain’s Prehistory
The Celts

3.

The Island
A milder climate than most of the
European mainland
The climate and countryside are
varied
Much of the south and east is fairly
flat => better agricultural conditions
=> the most populated part of the
island => the most political power
Britain’s history has been closely
connected with the sea

4.

Britain’s prehistory
Has Britain always been an island?
At the end of the
last Ice Age the
temperature
rose, the ice cap
melted and
flooded the lowlying land that is
now under the
North Sea and
the English
Channel.

5.

Paleolithic era
Happisburgh footprints 800,000 years ago
Happisburgh is a village in the English
County of Norfolk.

6.

The first evidence of human life 250,000 BC
Neanderthal tool quarry
Two groups
Tools from flakes of flint
Tools from a central core of flint

7.

Red Lady of Paviland
the first remains of human 31,000 BC
Goat’s Hole Cave in Wales
Burial sight of a male alongside
with a mammoth
The archeologists found flint arrow heads and tools and
correctly concluded that the skeleton was in fact a male
hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age

8.

Last major Ice Age (28,000 BC)

9.

Waves of invaders after Ice Age
• 10,000 BC small groups of hunters,
gatherers and fishers (not settlers)
• Around 5,000 BC Isle of Cole (Scotland)
fishing camp
• By 5,000 BC Britain had become an
island