Transcript 2 Prehistoric, Celtic, Romanx

Cultural History of Britain
Lecture 2
Timeline 1
c. 450,000 – 10,000 BC Palaeolithic (Early Stone Age)
c. 10,000 – 4,500 BC Mesolithic
 hunting-gathering communities over Europe
 c. 7000 – the “land bridge” connecting the continent and the would-be
British Isles disappears
 “flaked stones”
c. 4,500 – 2500 BC Neolithic (New Stone Age)
 cultivation of land, domestication of animals
 first built monuments on the British Isles (tombs, religious sites)
 megaliths and dolmen
 polished stone and flint axes
 first pottery
 tribal communities
 dramatic events related to religion and the burial of the dead
Palaeolithic Britain: The Red Lady
of Paviland (Gower, Wales)
Bones of a young man who died about 26,000 years ago
(discovery: 1823)
(Aldhouse-Green)
Neolithic Britain 1: Stonehenge (Salisbury Plain, c. 3000 BC)
•Built in 4 waves in the Stone and Bronze Ages
•Bluestones (up to 4 tons, from Wales, Preseli Mountains)
•Sarsen stones (up to 40 tones, Marlborough Downs)
•Why was it built? (Druids, religious site, calendar, burial or healing place)
Neolithic Britain 2: Newgrange (Ireland, c. 3300-2900)
•Passage tombs
•Ashes and bones in the central chamber
•Winter solstice
Timeline 2
c. 2300 – 700 BC Bronze Age
 First metalwork (bronze and gold)
 Monuments (stone circles)
 18th century BC – immigration of Beaker Folk
 Settlements
 Field systems, land divisions
 Bog bodies (mummification, human sacrifice?)
c. 700 BC – 43 AD Iron Age (Celtic Britain)
 Immigration of Celts from the continent in several waves
 Agricultural settlement (roundhouses)
 Hill-forts
 Late period: enclosed settlements in the south
 Increasing contacts with the continent
The Bronze Age 1: Beaker Folk (Bell-Shaped Pottery)
•Might have brought
bronz to Britain
•Later: Wessex Culture
The Bronze Age 2: The Cladh Hallan Mummies (1600700 BC, Hebrides)
The Iron Age 1: Celtic Tribes
Two different waves and cultures:
 Hallstatt culture (Austria)
 La Tène culture (territory of the Danube and Rhine, Eastern
France)
 Surviving Celtic languages: Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Welsh
Highly developed metalwork (stylised, abstract), two
schools:
 North-East: repoussé bronze (horse-masks, shields, stylised
plant forms)
 South-West: engraving of bronze mirrors, theme of three
The Iron Age 2: The „Insular” Art of the Celts –
Metalwork
The Iron Age 3: Celtic Hoards – Votive Offerings
The Iron Age 3: the Hill-Fort Maiden Castle (near
Dorchester, completed in the 5th c. BC)
The Iron Age 4: the Roundhouse
The Iron Age 5: Prehistoric Hill Figures
•A number of white chalk
figures on plains and hillsides
•Uffington White Horse (1st c.
BC)
Probably Celtic tribal
symbol
• Cerne Giant (Cerne Abbas,
Dorset, ambiguous date, 2nd c.
BC or AD, or 5th c. AD
Connected to ancient
fertility rites
Timeline 3
43 AD – 410 – Roman Britain
 43 AD: King Verica invites the Romans to liberate his territory
from a neighbouring, hostile tribe
 after 57 AD: revolts against the Romans (61 AD: Boadicae)
 process of colonisation
 planned towns
 roads
 villas and palaces
 122-7: Hadrian’s Wall
 140-42: Antonine’s Wall
 4th c. – regular attacks of the Celtic Picts and Scots from the
North
 391: Christianity becomes the state religion of the Roman
Empire
 402-407: withdrawal of Roman legions from Britain
Roman Britain 1: Fishbourne Palace
Roman Britain 2: The Roman Bath in Bath
Roman Britain 3: Gorgon’s (Medusa’s) Head at the
Temple of Sulis Minerva (Bath)
Roman Britain 4: Hadrian’s Wall (Tyne-Solway line,
122-27)
Works Cited
Aldhouse-Green, Stephen. “Great Sites: Paviland Cave.” British
Archaeology
(Oct.
2001).
http://www.archaeologyuk.org/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml
BBC – History. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history
Gelfert, Hans-Dieter: Nagy-Britannia rövid kultúrtörténete.
Corvina, Budapest, 2005.
Halliday, F. E. An Illustrated Cultural History of England.
London: Thames and Hudson, 1981.
Laing, Lloyd and Jennifer. Art of the Celts. London: Thames
and Hudson, 1992.
Wilson, Hugh. „The healing stones: Why was Stonehenge
built?”
BBC
–
History.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/british_prehistory/healing
_stones.shtml.