6. Bronze Age

At around 2700 BC a new culture arrived in Britain, often referred to as the Beaker culture.

Beaker pottery appears in the Mount Pleasant Phase (2700 BC - 2000 BC), named so after the first place where its traces were found, along with flat axes and burial practices of inhumation (burying in the ground). The megalithic phases of Stonehenge date to this period as well as many other famous prehistoric sites such as Seahenge.

Believed to be of Iberian origin (modern day Spain and Portugal), Beaker techniques brought to Britain the skill of refining metal. At first they made things from copper, but from around 2,150 BC, smiths had discovered how to make bronze (which was much harder than copper) by mixing copper with a small amount of tin. And thus the bronze age arrived in Britain. Over the next thousand years, bronze gradually replaced stone as the main material for tool and weapon making.

Britain had large reserves of tin in the areas of Cornwall and Devon in what is now southwest England, and thus tin mining began. By around 1,600 BC, the southwest of Britain was experiencing a trade boom, as British tin was exported across Europe.

The Beaker people were also skilled at making ornaments from gold, and examples of these have been found in graves of the wealthy Wessex culture of southern Britain.

Early Bronze Age Britons buried their dead beneath earth mounds known as barrows, often with a beaker alongside the body. Later in the period, cremation was adopted as a burial practice with cemeteries of urns containing cremated individuals appearing in the archaeological record.

One of the most well-known burials of the period is that of the Amesbury Archer. This grave of a man dating to around 2,300BC was discovered three miles from Stonehenge by Wessex Archaeology staff in May 2002. His grave was the richest from this period (the early Bronze Age) ever found in Britain and contained the country’s first gold objects.

Later during Bronze age technological development led to a more sophisticated lifestyle. Woven garments were being produced, and beer and mead were being brewed. Finds of, what appear to be, razors, suggest that some men may have been clean shaven. Bronze socketed axes (so that a wooden handle could be inserted) came into use and weapons were improved. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that, as the Bronze Age was drawing to a close, society became more warlike. Hillfort development, traditionally associated with the Iron Age, began, it seems, towards the end of the Bronze Age.

7. Iron Age (Introduction)

So, as for the Iron Age itself, in around 750 BC ironworking techniques reached Britain from southern Europe. Iron was stronger and more plentiful than bronze, and its introduction marks the beginning of the new age. Ironworking revolutionised many aspects of life, most importantly agriculture. Iron tipped ploughs could churn up land far more quickly and deeply than older wooden or bronze ones, and iron axes could clear forest land far more efficiently for agriculture.

About 900 BC, British society changed considerably. In general we can say that it was the Celtic culture that by 500 BC covered most of the British Isles.

Lecture 2 Celtic Britain (2 h.)