Stonehenge, a Neolithic andBronze Age megalithicmonument in Wiltshire,thought to have been erectedc.2000–2500 BC.Roman Britain in 125AD, showing nativetribes, cities, main roadsand legions deployed.An Anglo-Saxon helmetfound at Sutton Hoo, probably belonging toRaedwald of EastAnglia circa 625.
Bones and flint tools found in Norfolk and Suffolk show that
Homo erectus
lived inwhat is now England about 700,000 years ago.
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At this time, Great Britain was joined to mainland Europe by a large land bridge. The current position of the EnglishChannel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the Thames and the Seine. This area was greatly depopulated during the periodof the last major ice age, as were other regions of the British Isles. In the subsequentrecolonisation, after the thawing of the ice, genetic research shows that present-dayEngland was the last area of the British Isles to be repopulated,
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about 13,000 yearsago. The migrants arriving during this period contrast with the other of the inhabitantsof the British Isles, coming across lands from the south east of Europe, whereas earlier arriving inhabitants came north along a coastal route from Iberia. These migrants wouldlater adopt the Celtic culture that came to dominate much of western Europe.In the summer of 55 BC, Julius Caesar invaded Britain with an army of two legions. Caesar set out from Gaul and was hampered by the weather while crossing the English Channel. Helanded in southern England and although he established a beachhead, his cavalry was unableto land to support the infantry and a storm damaged the fleet. Faced with being cut off fromsupport and the Roman territory of Gaul, Caesar ordered the ships repaired and retreated.
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He returned the following year with a larger force and a bigger fleet designed to be able towithstand conditions in the English Channel and to be better at landing. Although the fivelegions and 2,000 cavalry, a combined force of about 30,000 men, successfully landed thefleet again suffered storm damage. After Caesar fought his way across the River Thames theBritons adopted guerrilla tactics. Caesar secured a treaty with Cassivellaunus, a warlordleading the British resistance, and some other chiefs of the local tribes before returning toGaul.
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Despite the decay of the treaty in the early 1st century AD, which had stipulatedthat the Trinovantes – a tribe who were allied with Rome – were unharmed, Rome did not getinvolved in Britain until 43 AD.
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Boudica, queen of the Iceni, led a major uprising of the Briton tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.
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David Mattingly estimates that in the period of the conquest (43–83 AD), between 100,000 and 250,000 werekilled, out of a total population of some two million.
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With the fall of the Roman Empire 400 years later, the Romansleft the province of Britannia, much of which later came to be known as England.
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Medieval England
The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early mediæval England from theend of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th century untilthe Conquest by the Normans in 1066.
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Fragmentary knowledge of Anglo-SaxonEngland in the 5th and 6th centuries comes from the British writer Gildas (6th century) theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle (a history of the English people begun in the 9th century), saints'lives, poetry, archaeological findings, and place-name studies. The dominant themes of theseventh to tenth centuries were the spread of Christianity and the political unification of England. Christianity is thought to have come from three directions—from Rome to the south,and Scotland and Ireland to the north and west, respectively. From about 500 AD, it is believed England was divided into seven petty kingdoms, known as the
Heptarchy
: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex.
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The Anglo-Saxonkingdoms tended to coalesce by means of warfare. As early as the time of Ethelbert of Kent,one king could be recognised as Bretwalda ("Lord of Britain"). Generally speaking, the titlefell in the 7th century to the kings of Northumbria; in the 8th to those of Mercia; and in the9th to Egbert of Wessex, who in 825 defeated the Mercians at the Battle of Ellendun. In thenext century, his family came to rule England.
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The "Great Heathen Army" of DanishVikings pillaged and conquered much of England in the late 9th century.
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England - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England3 of 2527/7/2552 22:31
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