Unit 2: THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN: 1st Part

British history is long and rich going back thousands of years. Time after time
between about 2,700 years ago and 950 years ago, attackers, settlers and raiders
arrived in the British Isles. They found new kingdoms and bought with them new
beliefs and technologies.

For our timeline we shall divide the period of British history into ten main chunks to
try and explain what was happening in England and Britain during the last six
thousand years: 1) Prehistoric Britain, 2) Roman Britain, 3) Anglo Saxon Britain, 4)
Viking Britain, 5) Medieval Britain (Normans), 6) Tudor Britain, 7) Stuart Britain, 8)
Georgian Britain, 9) Victorian Britain and 10) Modern Britain.

1) Prehistoric Britain

a) Old Stone Age

The Old Stone Men: The first men and women came to Britain over two and
a half million years ago. There were swampy river-basins in place of the North
Sea and the English Channel. Britain used to be joined to the European land
mass by a land bridge. It is believed that Stone Age man migrated to Britain
across the land bridge. Britain became an island separate from the rest of
Europe about 8,500 years ago, when melting ice formed the English Channel.

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As the climate got warmer at the end of the second ice age, tribes of hunters
and gatherers of food, who used simple stone tools and weapons, made their
way into Britain. It was normal for them to move from place to place so they
could find new resources. Parts of a skull found in Sussex a few years ago
have enabled scientists to do some skilful guessing about the “Old Stone
Men” who lived in these parts. They were hairy, ape-like men prowling about
near their cave-homes. They used roughly shaped flints as tools and
weapons. The whole race of them died out, probably about 30,000 years B.C.,
when the climate became so cold that ice spread down the North Pole until it
covered most of Europe. We are not concerned with studying them now, for
these Old Stone Men were not ancestors of the British people.

Activity 1:

Find words in the text similar in meaning to the ones given below:

1. Valuable:
2. Repeatedly:
3. People who assault:
4. People who plunder:
5. Chronology of events:
6. Large pieces:
7. More than:
8. Muddy, marshy:
9. People who kill for food:
10. Implements, instruments used to work or fight:
11. Head bone:
12. Moving stealthily about:
13. In a coarse manner:
14. Became extinct, disappeared gradually:
15. Interested:

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b) The New Stone Men

The earliest inhabitants of Britain, whose blood flows in the British veins,
came over soon after it became an island. For centuries they have been
spreading along the coasts of northern Africa, Spain, Portugal and France.
Wherever they settled they set up big stones as part of their religion; and
since many such monuments are to be found in Spain and Portugal, we call
these people “Iberians”. They were far more civilized than the Old Stone Men.

True, they still used implements of stone, wood and bone, but they had learnt
to fashion them much more skilfully. The Iberians made shacks to live in, and
grew crops and kept cattle. Bit by bit, they discovered how to weave rough
cloth instead of wearing only skins (like the Old Stone Men), and how to make
earthenware vessels in which to keep supplies of food and drink. Whereas
the Old Stone Men lived in mere family groups, these later folk formed large
communities under rulers. They constructed earthworks for the protection of
their cattle and made great stone circles for the worship of their gods. These
people left no literature, but they did leave many burial chambers, monuments
and artifacts. Stone circles, Neolithic tombs and tools have been found all
over the British Isles from the tip of Cornwall in the south to the very north of
Scotland.

Activity 2:

Odd word out:

1. settlers – raiders – plunderers – implements – inhabitants

2. Africa – Portugal – England – Spain – France
3. wood –bone – iron – stone – weave – bronze
4. tools – tombs – monuments – chambers – shacks
5. rough – big – large – burial – many
6. whose – whereas – still – but – since
7. island – landmass – tip – earthenware – isle
8. learnt – fashion – made – found – left
9. whole – normal – large – civilized – blood
10. roughly – as – and – so – after

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c) Metal comes into use

About 2000 years B.C. people of a new type began to arrive from the
Continent. They set up big stones for their worship, like the earlier inhabitants,
but they had learnt to fashion flint axes and spear-heads much more skilfully;
and what is more, they brought over implements made of quite a different
material. They had learnt to mix certain metals, such as copper and tin, to
make tools that were stronger and far more effective than those of stone or
wood. It is quite likely that the newcomers were first attracted to Britain by the
fact that in several districts tin and copper were to be found close together
near the surface.

d) The Celts

The new folk had been spreading across Europe for several centuries. They
were bigger and fairer than the Iberians, and they had little difficulty in
overcoming them for they found out how to smelt and forge iron, which was
as much superior to bronze as bronze was to stone. Moreover, they loved
fighting and were bound together in family clans led by warrior chieftains. The
first to arrive (about 600 B.C.) were the “Gaels”. Some of their manners and
customs have survived in the Scottish Highlands right down to the present
day, and their speech may still be heard there. Their first settlements were in
England. They forced the natives to do the rough work of the fields while they
themselves engaged in the “nobler” occupation of fighting other tribes. After
a time they intermarried with the Iberians and the distinction between the two
races faded out. Then, some two centuries later, a second wave of Celtic
people came over the “Brythons”, from whom the modern Welsh are
descended. They drove the Gaels northward and took possession of the
southern parts of the island. Lastly, about 150 B.C., there was a third
immigration, this time by people who had been living in the “Belgic” lands of
northern-eastern France. They were not of purely Celtic race, for they had

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mingled with the Germans. They brought over heavy iron ox-ploughs, one of
the greatest improvements ever made in agriculture. Their religious worship
was conducted by priests called Druids. They acted as teachers and judges,
and claimed to be able to foretell the future and ward off disasters by making
sacrifices to their gods. Some historians still think that it was they who built
Stonehenge. They certainly used it; but we are not sure if they built it, what
we now know is that it is nearly as old as them.

Activity 3:

Antonyms: Find words in the text with an opposite meaning to the ones given:

1. Finish:
2. Similar:
3. Unlikely:
4. Locals, natives:
5. Ease:
6. Disappeared, vanished:
7. Refined:
8. Similarity:
9. Partially:
10. Deterioration:

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 Activity 4:

Reference: What do the words in bold refer to?

a. They (line 3): ……………………………………………………………………

b. who (line 17): …………………………………………………………………...
c. who (line 21): ………………………………………………………………….
d. whose (line 27): ……………………………………………………………….
e. it (line 28): ……………………………………………………………………...
f. these (line 32): …………………………………………………………………
g. them (line 34): ………………………………………………………………….
h. They (line 46): ………………………………………………………………….
i. that (line 50): ……………………………………………………………………
j. them (line 56): ………………………………………………………………....
k. which (line 56): ………………………………………………………………...
l. Some (line 59): …………………………………………………………………
m. themselves (line 63): ………………………………………………………….
n. They (line 70): ………………………………………………………………….
o. they (line 75): …………………………………………………………………...

TIMELINE OF BRITISH HISTORY

BC Britain Abroad

500,000 People migrate to Britain from Europe.

6500 Seas rise, cutting Britain off from mainland Europe

4000 Neolithic or New Stone Age begins: farming people

arrive from Europe.

First evidence of farming

Farming quickly spread all across the British Isles.
Land is cleared, wheat and barley planted and herds of
domesticated sheep, cattle, and pigs raised.

New Stone Age people lived in rectangular log cabins,

similar in style to those of the early American West.

3000 First stone circles erected.

2300 Bronze Age begins

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 First metal workers
People learn to make bronze weapons and tools.
Introduction of cremation of the dead and burials in
round barrows.

Beaker culture - their name is thought to originate

from the distinctive beakers that accompanied their
burials. They were farmers and archers. They lived in
round huts (similar to the Celts) with a low stone wall
for a base. The roof was made of thatch, turf, or hides.
2000 Stonehenge built

1650 Trade routes begin to form

1136- Pharaoh
1327 Tutankhamen
rules Egypt

1200 Small Villages are first formed

753 Romulus and Remus

found Rome.
750 Iron Age begins: iron replaces bronze as most useful
metal. Most people of the Iron Age were farmers,
merchants, or craftspeople.
Population about 150,000.
563 Birth of Prince
Siddhartha
Gautama. He
later became Buddha
509 Rome expels kings
and becomes a
republic.
500 The Celtic people arrive from Central Europe.
The Celts were farmers and lived in small village
groups in the centre of their arable fields. They were
also warlike people.
432 The Parthenon
temple is built in
Athens, Greece

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Activity 5:

Cloze: Complete the gaps in the text with the words in the box:

SIGNIFICANCE ECCENTRIC THROUGHOUT SUCH ARRIVAL

PRACTICES INTERMINGLED FOCUS EXAMPLES REMAINS

Prehistoric Britain

Two thousand years ago there was an Iron Age Celtic culture (1) ……………. the
British Isles. It seems that the Celts, who had been arriving from Europe from the
eighth century BC onwards, (2) …………… with the peoples who were already there.
We know that religious sites that had been built long before the (3) …………… of
the Celts continued to be used in the Celtic period. For people in Britain today, the
chief (4) …………… of the prehistoric period (for which no written records exist) is
its sense of mystery. This sense finds its (5) ............... most easily in the astonishing
monumental architecture of this period, the (6) …………… of which exist throughout
the country. Wiltshire, in south-western England, has two spectacular (7)
……………: Silbury Hill, the largest burial mound in Europe, and Stonehenge. (8)
…………… places have a special importance for anyone interested in the cultural
and religious (9) …………… of prehistoric Britain. We know very little about them,
but there are some organizations today (for example, the Order of Bards, Ovates
and Druids – a small group of (10) …………… intellectuals and mystics) who base
their beliefs on them.

Activity 6:

Missing sentences: Four sentences have been removed from the text below. Read
the text and choose the missing sentences from the list. There is one sentence that
you do not need:

STONEHENGE

Stonehenge was built on Salisbury Plain some time between 3050 and 2300 BC. (1)
……………….. One of its mysteries is how it was ever built at all with the technology
of the time (the stones come from over 200 miles away in Wales). (2) ………………..
It appears to function as a kind of astronomical clock and we know it was used by
the Druids for ceremonies marking the passing of the seasons. (3) ……………….. It
appears in a number of novels, such as Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
These days Stonehenge is not only of interest to tourists, but it is also a gathering
point for certain minority groups such as hippies and New Age Travellers. (4)
………………..

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A. It has always exerted a fascination on the British imagination.
B. It is now fenced off to protect it from damage.
C. Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid
third millennium B.C.
D. Another is its purpose.
E. It is one of the most famous and mysterious archaeological sites in the world.

Activity 7:

Word order: Unscramble these words to form grammatically correct sentences:

1. millennium B.C./ metal-working/ Britain/ Iberians/ the/ their/ skills/ brought/

third/ to/ in/ the

………………………………………………………………………………………..

2. agriculture/ form/ early/ organization/ Celts/ tribal/ and/ of/ introduced/ their/
the

………………………………………………………………………………………..

3. westwards/ Cornwall/ forced/ Wales/ Celts/ the/ and/ Ireland/ into/ Romans/
by/ were/ the

………………………………………………………………………………………..

4. Irish Gaelic/ Scottish Gaelic/ Welsh/ and/ language/ Celtic/ the/ form/ exists/
the/ in/ of/ today

………………………………………………………………………………………..

5. burial ground/ Stonehenge/ beginnings/ from/ been/ could/ have/ a/ earliest/

its

………………………………………………………………………………………..

6. culture/ written/ Stonehenge/ records/ produced/ left/ no/ was/ that/ a/ by

………………………………………………………………………………………..

7. European continent/ Britain/ when/ peninsula/ there/ island/ wasn’t/ time/ a/

was/ but/ a/ of/ the/ an

………………………………………………………………………………………..

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8. weapons/ and/ jewellery/ graves/ their/ were/ individual/ in/ with/ people/
buried

………………………………………………………………………………………..

9. although/ lifestyles/ people/ nomadic/ settled/ had/ most/ of/ these/ were/
them/ of/ some

………………………………………………………………………………………..

10. homes/ temples/ people/ lived/ worshipped/ remains/ show/ how/ and/ the/ of/
and

………………………………………………………………………………………..

11. animals/ humans/ hunting/ earliest/ the/ eat/ finding/ and/ to/ survived/ by/ food

………………………………………………………………………………………..

12. connected/ Europe/ land-bridge/ mainland/ were/ to/ by/ a/ Isles/ the/ British

………………………………………………………………………………………..

13. creating/ land-bridge/ gradually/ water/ by/ submerged/ was/ British/ the/ Isles/
the

………………………………………………………………………………………..

14. animals/ train/ of/ New Stone Age/ the/ learned/ humans/ useful/ to/ how/ to/
people/ the/ also/ to/ be

………………………………………………………………………………………..

15. Stone Age/ how/ domesticated/ useful/ animals/ do/ think/ people/ you/ to/
were/ the?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

Activity 8:

Scrambled letters: Unscramble these letters to form meaningful words:

1. LILAVGE
2. PAPFECORSTEL

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3. KARSEBE
4. REALYB
5. PHESE
6. WONAPE
7. TROCAMENI
8. CHATTH
9. TRESCHAMN
10. TRELOFEL

Activity 9:

Read the following definitions and provide the corresponding word that begins
with the letter given in each case:

1. Invade by using military force: C……………

2. Tribe, related families, group: C……………
3. Recently arrive person: N……………
4. Fuse metals: S……………
5. Head of a tribe: C……………
6. Sudden attack: R……………
7. Land sloping into a stream: R……………
8. Estimation without knowledge: G……………
9. Ancestor: P……………
10. Inhabitant: R……………
11. Shape, make: F……………
12. Expertise: D……………
13. Bit by bit: G……………
14. Cows, etc. kept for meat or dairy: C……………
15. Raise animals: K……………
16. Provisions: S……………
17. While in contrast: W……………
18. Marry into own family: I……………
19. A sweeping rush of people in a common direction: W……………
20. Keep away: W……………

Activity 10:

Ask questions for the underlined parts of the sentence:

1. The story of prehistoric Britain began when the first humans arrived in Britain.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

2. Then, very gradually people learned new skills.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

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3. Tools and weapons give clues about the way people worked and fought.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

4. The prehistoric period is divided into three ‘ages’. They are known as the
Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

5. The prehistoric period came to an end when the Romans invaded Britain.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

6. In 55 BC Julius Caesar tried to invade Britain, but he was driven back by

British warriors.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

7. The earliest known humans arrived in these lands around 900,000 years
ago.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

8. The oldest human remains so far found in England date from about 500,000
years ago.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

9. Ice Age humans created the earliest known cave art in England at Creswell
Crags in Derbyshire about 13,000 years ago.

........................................................................................................................

10. Hunters and gatherers made use of wild plants and animals to survive.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

11. Flint for tools and weapons was being extracted at Grime's Graves, Norfolk.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

12. During the early Bronze Age, some people were buried in rich graves within
round barrows, accompanied by exotic imported goods.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

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 13. Several burial grounds have been found in the area around Stonehenge, but
also in Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

14. The first significant written record of Britain and its inhabitants was made by
the Greek navigator Pytheas.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

15. At first the users made items from copper.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Activity 11:

Cloze: Complete the gaps in the text with the words in the box:

SETTLEMENTS CONTINENT LIKE ANCIENT LOW-LYING END

CAUTIONARY TALES OTHER THAN RELEASE WHAT CHANGE
MELT DATA SUCH AS POPULATED

DOGGERLAND
At the end of the last ice age, Britain formed the northwest corner of an icy (1)
……………. Warming climate exposed a vast continental shelf for humans to inhabit.
Further warming and rising seas gradually flooded (2) …………… lands. Some 8,200
years ago, a catastrophic (3) …………… of water from a North American glacial lake
and a tsunami from a submarine landslide off Norway inundated whatever remained
of Doggerland.

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Things aren’t always what they seem on the surface. Looking at the area between
mainland Europe and the eastern coast of Great Britain, you probably wouldn’t guess
it had been anything (4) …………… a great expanse of ocean water. But roughly
12,000 years ago, as the last major ice age was reaching its (5) ……………, the area
was very different. Instead of the North Sea, the area was a series of gently sloping
hills, marshland, heavily wooded valleys, and swampy lagoons: Doggerland.
Mesolithic people (6) …………… Doggerland. Archaeologists and anthropologists
say the Doggerlanders were hunter-gatherers who migrated with the seasons,
fishing, hunting, and gathering (7) …………… as hazelnuts and berries. Over time,
the Doggerlanders were slowly flooded out of their seasonal hunting grounds. Water
previously locked away in glaciers and ice sheets began to (8) ……………, drowning
Doggerland. Around 6,000 years ago, the Mesolithic people were forced onto higher
ground in (9) …………… is today England and the Netherlands. Evidence of
Doggerlanders’ nomadic presence can be found embedded in the seafloor, where
modern fishermen often find (10) …………… bones and tools that date to about
9,000 years ago. These artifacts brought Doggerland’s submerged history to the
attention of British and Dutch archaeologists and paleontologists. Using
sophisticated seismic survey (11) …………… acquired mainly by oil companies
drilling in the North Sea, the scientists have been able to reconstruct a digital model
of nearly 46,620 square kilometers (18,000 square miles) of what Doggerland looked
(12) …………… before it was flooded. Those studying the Doggerland area are
finding that the climate (13) ……………. faced by Mesolithic people is analogous to
our own. Mesolithic peoples were forced out of Doggerland by rising water that
engulfed their low-lying (14) ……………... Climate scientists say that a similar
situation could affect the billions of people who live within 60 kilometers (37 miles)
of a shoreline today, if polar ice caps continue to melt at an accelerated pace. The
story of the Mesolithic people and their home of Doggerland are (15) …………… for
the consequences of a rapidly rising sea level. Glacial melt forced the Mesolithic
people out of their homes and now Doggerland, like the fabled Atlantis, is just a
sunken and mostly forgotten Stone Age culture, its only evidence being decayed
artifacts and fossils of its people.

Activity 12:

Key-word transformations: Using the word given in brackets make a second

sentence that has exactly the same meaning as the first sentence:

1. We are hearing the same news story again and again.

(after)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
2. They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.
(large)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
3. Most of the carpets are over $5,000.
(than)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
4. They started moving to the front of the crowd.
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 (made)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
5. The cat prowled the alleys in search of food.
(stealthily)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
6. Today, people are much more concerned about their health than they were in
the past. (interested)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
7. Gradually, he began to understand what they were trying to do.
(bit)
8. The building of the church took six months to erect.
(up)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
9. The decorations were absolutely beautiful and additionally the children have
made them themselves.
(more)
………………………………………………………………………………………..
10. The President is currently busy signing the treaty.
(involved)
………………………………………………………………………………………..

Activity 13:

There are 15 grammatical mistakes in this paragraph. Spot the mistakes and
correct them.

Animals and Skins in Prehistoric England

Animals were not keep purely to provide food. Cattle was probably also used for
ploughing or pulling carts. Domesticated horses, however, were rare in Britain until
the Iron Age. Finds of gnawed bones show where dogs were common in prehistoric
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Britain. Varying in size, they were guard dogs, shepherding dogs, hunting aids or
pets, or all of this things. Roman writers believes that Iron Age Britons also kept
hares as pets: Boudicca are supposed to have carried one under his cloak. Sheep
was the most ubiquitous Bronze Age animal. From about 2000 BC a breed new
appeared whose fleece was woolly rather that hairy. The wool could to be woven
into textiles, which could be dyed in colours bright. The scant evidence we have
suggests that earlier clothing were made of animal skins or leather, sewn together
using bone needles (dated as early as 13,000 BC) and animals guts. By the early
Neolithic period they were sewn with linen thread, made from flax, who was also
woven into late Bronze Age clothing.

Activity 14:

Having read all the texts and done all the exercises in the handout, you can now
answer the following questions in a direct, short and concise way:

1. How do scientists believe the first Stone Age man arrived in Britain?

………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Why did Britain become an island separate from the rest of the continent?

………………………………………………………………………………………

3. What happened to the whole race of Stone Age men? Why?

………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Where did the Iberians come from before arriving in Britain?

……………………………………………………………………………………….

5. In what way is it said that the Iberians were more civilized than the men of the
stone age?

………………………………………………………………………………………

6. What materials different from those of the Iberians did the Celts use to make
their tools and weapons?

……………………………………………………………………………………….

7. What were the natives forced to do when the Gaels arrived on the island?

……………………………………………………………………………………….

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 8. Which wave of immigrants brought the latest advances in agriculture to the
island? What did they consist of?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

9. Who was Stonehenge built by? What for?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

10. What materials did the Celts use to build their homes?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

11. How did the Celts bury their dead?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

12. Where are the Celts believed to have extracted the stones to build
Stonehenge?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

13. What caused Doggerland to be flooded?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

14. What evidence did the archaeologists have to asset that there was human
and animal life in Doggerland?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

15. What animals did the Iron Age Britons keep and what for?

………………………………………………………………………………………..

Activity 15:

Paragraph writing:

Write a 20-line paragraph of your “own authorship” about the different waves of
immigrants that arrived in prehistoric Britain:

………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………

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………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Rayner, R M “A Short History of Britain” Longmans, 1966

 Morgan, Kenneth O “The Oxford History of Britain” 2010
 Mattingly, David “An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 54
BC – AD 409 ” 2007
 Cunliffe, Barry/ Briggs, Asa/ Bourke, Joanna/ Morrill, John “The Penguin
Illustrated History of Britain and Ireland: From Earliest Times to the Present
Day” 2004
 Trevelyan, G M “History of England” 2000
 Trevelyan, G M “A Shortened History of England” 1988
 Ackroyd, Peter “Foundation: The History of England from its Earliest
Beginnings to the Tudors" 2013
 Garwoord, Christopher & Edda Peris “Aspects of Britain and the USA”, Oxford
University Press, 1992
 O’Driscoll, James “Britain: The Country and its People: An Introduction for
Learners of English” Oxford University Press, 1997

WEBSITES

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_Isles
 http://resources.woodlands-
junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/history.html
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/
 https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/
 http://www.britannia.com/history/
 https://www.wordreference.com/

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