A History of Britain - Celts and Romans (800 BC - 1 AD)

800 BC it is the dawn of a new age in Britain one dominated by items wrought in iron with these new tools the chieftains of Britain would divide the land between them carving out petty kingdoms and nations from these bases they would wage unceasing Wars must also forming new trade partnerships with the tribes of Gaul but their very success would prove their undoing by the turn of the millennium their neighbours would fall under the sway of a new power in 55 BC his presence would be felt in Britain as a foreign army lands on its shores for the very first time [Music] you the collapse of the bronze networks of ancient Britain had a vast consequences for its people over the preceding millennium the emergence of bronze is the preferred tool making material had led to a revolution in society arriving first alongside the migration of the beaker people into Britain and Ireland bronze axes soon laid waste to Britain's ancient woodland the next few centuries saw much of Britain parceled up into mass farming systems elite groups emerged supported by their hoarding of luxury bronze goods then around 1200 BC the climate in Britain would start to deteriorate in the new eda forested uplands increased rainfall would render farming aalberts impossible whilst in the lowlands heat growth would overrun vast waves of agricultural land soon after the vast Atlantic bronze networks would come to an end and all over Britain the material that had once formed the very core of society was now been carefully thrown away too many archaeologists the late bronze age in Britain is synonymous with decline this was most reflected with the collapse of the complex field systems seen around Dartmoor and the Thames Valley and the vast hordes of bronze items deposited in rivers and lakes during this time it is theorized that Britain's population may have fallen of its remaining citizens being forced together into shrinking areas agricultural land the native bronze production around which life had once revolved was slowly being abandoned in favour of recycling and continental exports meanwhile the elite status these items would have once conferred was slowly being eroded in favour of communal displays of feasting and excess and across the continent a new technology is looming one that will transform the lives of the British people as much as bronze before it truly it seemed like the end of an era historians have often found it easier to simplify prehistory into distinct periods the most common of these is based on the dominant tool making materials of the day if we follow this system then the Stone Age in Britain ended around four and a half thousand years ago when the first metal tools arrived alongside the beaker migration into Britain and Ireland this metalworking period began with the Bronze Age which lasted for most of the next two millennia and which saw the arrival of first copper and then bronze tools around 800 BC this area in turn gave way to the superior tools of the Iron Age which lasted roughly until the Roman conquest in the 1st century AD the result is a simple system one that works well in the confines of a museum display or a textbook but the reality that it took many centuries for both bronze and iron to become widespread in Britain in the case of iron the earliest known tools appeared during the eighth century BC comprising part of the Flint var hoard in their construction these early tools were deliberately crafted to resemble their bronze precursors retaining elements in their design but the stronger iron simply didn't need and despite this early appearance iron tools simply don't appear in large quantities in the archaeological record and to what we would term the mid iron age and in the time in between society were changed greatly in Britain and Ireland one way that this change can be seen is in just how this new metal was used by all accounts iron seems to have been considered a more mundane material than the bronze that preceded it it saw was much more widespread than either copper or tin and high-end tools are likely to have been produced by local Smith's rather than a fixed mining sites perhaps due to its wider availability iron never seems to have attained the ritual importance of bronze that would find its way into many elite items in the centuries ahead still none of these facts can obscure the advantages of iron compared to bronze it is stronger more flexible and easier both to produce and to repair so how did I earn working arrived in Britain was it a purely homegrown affair or did it make its way into Britain like bronze before it on the back of a migration well as far as historians of the early 20th century were concerned the story of iron's arrival in Britain was simple so simple in fact that it could be summed up in just one word invasion [Music] evidence of this supposed invasion has been found across northern Britain and Ireland in the form of a new type of bronze sword that became popular during the first half of the 8th century BC this sword known as the gun Lincoln sword was also widely adopted throughout Central and Eastern Europe by the chieftains of the house stack culture this culture which emerge from around 800 BC was characterized by the appearance of a horse riding aristocracy who buried their elites in timber barrows pertaining large numbers of weapons and high prestige Goods older theories pointed to the appearance of this gun Lincoln sword in the British archaeological record around this time alongside copious amounts of horse harnesses as evidence of an invasion by this warrior elite this invasion would have replaced much of the native population and led to the introduction of ironworking new cultural practices and perhaps most significantly a new family of languages this idea of a Celtic invasion remains well-established in popular culture to this day at first glance this theory might seem logical after all bronze working in Britain was likely brought to these shores by a similar migration that of the beaker people in the mid third millennium BC but modern archaeologists now reject most elements of aspherical we now know that the gun Lincoln sword was only briefly popular in Central Europe and by the middle of the 8th century BC it was replaced in house stat burials by the iron Mindel home sword if this invasion scenario were true that we might expect to find examples of this sword appearing in similar burials across Britain however only one example has been found as part of the flint valour hoard for whatever reason the people of Britain chose to hold on to their bronze swords for at least another couple of centuries and instead of being buried with them they did what people in Britain had been doing for a millennium they deposited them in rivers and lakes most archeologists now consider the emergence of iron working in Britain to have been fed more by trade and cultural diffusion than by invasion indeed it is right around 500 BC when iron tools become established in Britain that new trade links were being forged between southeastern England in Central Europe with them these links would bring a new elite form of metalworking that would one day culminates in homegrown masterpieces of Celtic art alongside it came over types of luxury goods and much much of southern England would come to revolve in the centuries ahead but we're getting ahead of ourselves first let's take a look at what life was like in Britain during the earliest Iron Age right around 800 BC after centuries of decline the climate of britain was beginning to improve in eastern Britain the deposition of bronze holds in lakes and rivers slowly fizzled out continuing in a reduced fashion in southwestern England and Wales over the next two centuries the population expanded new farmsteads began to appear this time focused on large circular houses in form these round houses were similar to those of their Bronze Age precursors but often their scale is more reminiscent of medieval halls than a family dwellings reconstructions have shown that some of these round houses were so large they may have had upper floors or at least roof lofts in which valuable commodities could have been stored no doubt some of these sites were occupied by more than one family and a special care and attention with which many were placed within their communities give a clear sign of prestigious individuals dwelling within at the same time these buildings retain many of the ceremonial aspects of the Bronze Age in almost all cases their entrances point eastward towards the Rising Sun most appear to have been the sites of communal feasts similar to those of the late bronze age and it is around the same time as these large round houses are emerging that an old idea reappears in Britain hilltop enclosures at first appeared in Britain during the 4th millennium BC in the form of the causeway enclosures these sites which may have acted as tribal meeting grounds for trade or ritual worship flourished for centuries before their construction halted around 3000 BC now over two thousand years later this idea began to return to Britain between the years of 900 and 600 BC simple enclosures started to appear on hilltops across southern and central England an early example of these enclosures can be found at war Berry Hill where a simple banking ditch still enclosed as an area as some 33 Hector's this combination of impressive size and wheat defenses is common amongst this type of early enclosure which were fought to have acted as Corral's for large herds of sheep and cattle this hypothesis is supported by the lack of internal structures found within many of these enclosures which often seemed to have contained little more than lightly built shelters instead people may have used these sites to seasonally round up their flocks sorting castration and culling events that may have been timed to intersect with rituals and mass feasting these communal farms and enclosures are a snapshot of a society not too different from that of the Late Bronze Age but for the people of Britain the world awaiting them in the centuries ahead is far less egalitarian indeed by the middle of the first millennium BC we see new hierarchies and regional cultures emerging across much of Britain the C's of this can already be seen by the middle Iron Age when a second category of hilltop structures began to emerge some of these can still be seen today in places like high downhill in West Sussex where a small rectangular enclosure was constructed around 600 BC these areas are distinguished by the presence of extensive fortifications and excavations of their interiors have shown a large amount of debris associated with intensive occupation compared to the larger enclosures these sites are rare they already contain the blueprint what would become the greatest fortifications yet built in Britain but before these new fortifications could emerge another event would radically alter life in Britain we spoke before of how the climate began to improve during the early Iron Age it's not precisely agreed amongst archaeologists when ideal conditions for farming would have returned but we do know that by 500 BC the climate crisis would have been a distant memory and right around this time the population of Britain would explode this increase in population can be attested to by the sudden jump in a number of settlements found across Britain from the mid iron age onwards in addition to the improved climate it is now widely agreed that the second half of the first millennium saw the arrival of several inventions the combination of which helped to fuel this population boom the first is one we've already mentioned the widespread adoption of iron tools from around 500 BC by fitting an iron blade to the simple ploughs that characterized Bronze Age farming preparing a field was suddenly been both quicker and less labor-intensive around the same time the types of crops been planted in these fields were beginning to change wheat gave way to hardy a higher yielding crops like spelt as a new type of host Bali gained popularity alongside traditional autumn planting the practice of spring sowing also took hold increasing yields and reducing the risk of crop failure this increase in food production was enhanced further by an ingenious new storage method until this point grain seems to have been stored in large overground granaries in which it could only be held for so long before it germinated however at some point in the mid iron age it was discovered that germination could be halted by storing grain below ground in large pits which were then sealed an airtight clay cap this simple change when that grain could now be stockpiled to stave off famine in the event of crop failure it may even have become a currency of sorts as powerful tribes would have hoarded vast quantities of grain with which to bail out their neighbours in return for submission and finally the appearance of another piece of technology during the middle iron age would remove much of the labor that converting this grain into food had previously involved for millennia the saddle quern had been an essential part of British food production it's comprised of a large saddle shaped stone against which grain would be ground into a form of coarse flour whilst effective proper grinding would have taken many hours to complete and the Crouch position it required would have been crippling for the person using it but somewhere between the 5th and the 4th centuries BC a more efficient design emerged in Britain known as the rotary or beehive quern this new design comprised of two circular stones each with a hole in the center loosely mounted on top of each other using a wooden handle the upper stone could be rotated on top of the lower grain could then be poured through the central hole where it would be ground into flour between the two surfaces quicker and less back-breaking this new design would have greatly reduced the workload of the average farmer these innovations combined with another that we will come to shortly vastly increase the population capacity of Britain as always precise estimates of population are difficult to make but in the 1,500 years between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age the population of the British Isles may have tripled to around 1.5 million perhaps two-thirds of this total was concentrated in England mostly in the prosperous lands of the south and the West and with this increase also came vast changes in society simply put this larger population seems to fight to increase competition in Britain as expanding farmland would have forced once distant tribes into closer proximity with their neighbours these tensions at bike had been rising since the middle Bronze Age as shown by an increase of weapons like daggers Alberts and swords in the archaeological record shields also appeared in Britain during this time an armor and helmets made of leather would have been common amongst the Bronze Age warrior elite by the middle iron age however increased competition for control of territory and arable land led to the normalization of what may have until now in a relatively rare occurence war we'll talk in detail about Iron Age warfare soon but first if we want to understand what these conflicts would have involved we need to look at a new type of fortification that appears around this time across southern Britain one that seems to have risen organically as a response to these increasingly violent times unique to the British Isles the hill forts first begin to appear around 500 BC smaller than their hill enclosure precursors but larger than the fortifications seen at high downhill most early hill forts would have consisted of a single ditch protected by steep ramp it faced out with either stone or wood most had two distinct entrances which were in turn guarded by large gate houses and elaborate earthworks unlike the hill enclosures excavations of their interiors indicate that many were subject to dense continuous occupation evidence for streets granaries and even shrines has been found within their walls while storage pits numbering in the hundreds have been unearthed from beneath them over the next two centuries many of these sites would see their interiors enlarged with new lines of banks and fortifications being dug and iterated on in modern times erosion has reduced these ones sheer walls to more gentle slopes but even now two and a half millennia later these hill forts still give the impression of dominating their surrounding landscapes but was this their actual purpose given the elaborate defenses seen at many sites it might seem a foregone conclusion that their function was a defensive one of each fort acting as a centralized sanctuary for their communities in times of strife or as bases from which local rulers could plan battles and raids on their neighbors but you may be surprised to learn that the exact purpose of these early hill forts is controversial amongst archaeologists almost all agree that early hill forts were a reaction to an increasingly violent society brought on by increased population density but increasingly it is becoming clear that these sites would have fulfilled multiple functions some may well have acted as bases for local kings and warlords but others could have been designed the more communal role in mind almost all hill forts seemed to have acted as stockpiles for grain and cattle as shown by the large amounts of manure and storage pits found within their interior others may also have acted as religious sites as shown by the presence of larger buildings or shrines within their centers this is supported by the dual entrances seen many hill forts which may have been used for ritual processions similar to those of the Bronze Age finally there may also been an element to prestiged involved in the construction of these sites as seen by the increasingly elaborate fortifications at sites like Maiden Castle in Dorset simply put the mere impression of power and impregnability may have been more important in securing a territory than actual defensive capabilities this focus on prestige also seems to have extended to early warfare in Britain whilst it remains impossible to know for sure the limited archaeological record along with classical accounts of warfare amongst the peoples of Gaul and northern Europe indicates that all-out warfare would have been a rarity in early Iron Age Britain that's not to say that conflicts weren't commonplace but if we go by the examples of their European neighbors then they seem to have taken the form of frequent raids against specific settlements or hill forts the exact nature of these raids would have varied greatly depending on the circumstances but it seems that direct attacks on hill forts were rare until the late Iron Age instead most incursions seem to have been designed to establish the social positions of individual war leaders and chieftains along with increasing the prestige and the plunder of the tribe itself occasionally more traditional battle lines may have emerged but even here display and prestige would have helped dictate the outcome often it seems that these conflicts would have emphasized ritual contests between champions with a general melee only occurring of these contests proved indecisive this increased emphasis on display can also be seen in the arrival of a new vehicle on the continent first emerging during the 5th century BC the war chariot was soon to become an integral part of British warfare these vehicles were by no means a recent development horse-drawn carts had first appeared around the second half of the 4th millennium BC iveron the steppes of Eurasia or on the flood plains of Mesopotamia by the OE ii money mbc they had evolved into recognizable spoke world chariots by 1500 BC they were appearing in quantity throughout the eastern Mediterranean it took nearly a millennium for them to reach Western Europe but only a couple of centuries later they would become widespread across most of southern and eastern Britain the use of chariots by the native British is widely attested to by both the archaeological record and later written sources chariot fittings and harnesses start to appear in quantity all over Britain from around the late 5th century BC then under intensifying in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC similar vehicles appeared in Ireland where they would remain in use for nearly a millennium chariots also figure prominently and accounts of Britain written by classical authors many of whom found its use by the natives to be quaint by this time both the Greeks and the Romans had long since consigned the chariot to more ceremonial and sporting roles a deuce in warfare having been superseded by newer forms of cavalry to these offers its use would have seemed archaic a relic of an era dating back to the legendary Trojan War but when it comes to the only significant first-hand account that we have of their use in battle it's clear that those who face chariots in person had a far greater appreciation for their effectiveness this account comes to us from none other than Julius Caesar who encountered chariots on his two expeditions to Britain in the mid 1st century BC by this time the vehicles he encountered would have been light spoked affairs in which riding platforms would have hung by a series of leather straps this simple former suspension would have allowed the chariot to act as a mobile weapons platform from which their occupants could ride along enemy lines and challenge their rivals or else he'll missiles into their midst and if we go by Caesars account the Britons soon develop tactics to make the most effective use of these weapons quote these are the tactics of chariot warfare first they drive in all directions hurling Spears generally they succeed in throwing the racks of their enemies into confusion just with the terror caused by their galloping horses and the din of the wheels they make their way through the squadrons of their own cavalry then jump down from their chariots and fight on foot meanwhile chariot drivers withdraw a little way from the fighting and position the chariots in such a way that if their masters are hard pressed by the enemy's numbers they have an easy means of retreat to their own lines thus when they fight they have the mobility of cavalry and the staying power of infantry the site of these battles must have been quite a spectacle in addition to their chariots these warrior letes would have gone into battle equipped in their best iron weapons and fine leather armor accompanied by the sound of masked war horns carried by the rank-and-file for all the interest these sovereign war zones inspire it is unlikely that conflicts on this scale were a part of everyday of life for most of britain's Denison's that's not to say that raids and violence were restricted to southern Britain but when we look elsewhere to the north and the west we see very different societal patterns emerging while still fortifications are known throughout the rest of Britain the elaborate sights of southern and western England are conspicuously absent in their place Lycett regional identities many of them were their own forms societal organization by the 5th century BC these differences have become large enough that Britain could be separated into distinct zones in the southern and central parts of Britain we see the hill forts development that was also common throughout the eastern and southern parts of Scotland in eastern England however comparatively few fortifications have been found and what to the landscape is taken up by lightly defended farmsteads and villages these settlements are similar dominant north of the Humber though here they tend to be found upland set within small defensive enclosures the final Western zone runs up through Cornwall into the western parts of Wales and then finally through much of Western Scotland here settlements are characterized by heavy defensive structures which vary widely by region and terrain and it is in this part of Britain that a set of structures were built that gave the hill fort a run for their money around the middle iron age massive dry stone towers began to be erected along the coast of Scotland known as the Brock's many of these structures one stood in excess of 30 feet tall though few now retain more than a fraction of their original height like the hill forts of southeastern Scotland their great height and thickly built walls give an impression of brute power from which their owners would have dominated the local coastline it is unsurprising then the till your archaeologists saw them largely in these defensive terms indeed many theorized that these unusual towers were built to sanctuaries to which the local community would flee in response to cattle raids by their neighbors but the archaeological evidence now seems to favor a domestic role for these sites most Brock's appear to have been permanently occupied despite their great height assessments of their defensive capabilities have been mixed whilst all Brock's are distinguished by their thick walls and the presence of guard chambers by their entrances their doorways shown no other signs of fortification now rough stone walls would have been easy with determined attackers to scale the lack of windows or roof access would also have left the occupants unable to fire missiles down at their opponents not to mention blind to their attackers movements in fact it is now fought but the sheer height of these Brock's main said had been intended as a form of display by their occupants who would have competed with their neighbors to erect ever higher towers as impressive as they are these towers are far from the only type of homestead found in these regions related single-story buildings such as stone wheel houses or small fortified guns can be found throughout this western zone Scotland and Ireland were also home to another set of structures altogether known as the crenel they first appeared during the late Stone Age and it is during the Iron Age but their construction reached their peak most of these structures consisted of an artificial wooden island built on long stilts above the waters of lakes and locks these ingenious structures would have been well placed to exploit commercial waterways in their regions along with all the raw resources that the lakes themselves would have provided it is possible to see these different building patterns as being reflective of the different pressures these societies would have faced this is correct in a general sense as few other societies in Britain seem to have experienced the same level of warfare as southern England but even in areas without hill forts there are still signs of violence this can be seen in the large numbers of fortified sites that can be found throughout Wales and Western Scotland along with the copious number of warrior burials unearthed in areas such as northern England and Yorkshire these tensions only increased as the centuries went by during the 4th and the 3rd centuries BC the early hill forts of the south give way to a smaller number of more developed sites which are more evenly spaced across their respective landscapes in addition to the resizing some would become the focus of increasingly frantic reports of vacation by the second century BC this processor culminated in the most elaborate earthworks yet seen in Britain alas many of these fortifications would still proved incapable of withstanding the increased violence of these times signs of catastrophic fires have now been unearthed within the interiors of several hill forts perhaps the best example this violence can be seen at Danebury here a destruction layer shows that a large fire damaged significant proportions of the interior sometime in the late 4th century BC devastating as this event must have been for its occupants they seemed to have regrouped an activity continued at Danebury until the 1st century BC when another fire destroyed its gates only then after five centuries of occupation was the site finally abandoned further evidence of violence can be seen from the large quantities of sling stones found around the fort's entranceway and in the marks of weaponry seen on the bones and within in the face of this destruction it is understandable that sites like Danebury were never reappeared but what is more confusing is that many of these later hill forts seem to have been abandoned voluntarily you see as we enter the 1st century BC larger tribal kingdoms were beginning to appear in Britain as these territories emerged the tribal borders began to move and shrink suddenly hill forts that at once stood between two rival tribes may have found themselves part of the same Confederation or in service to a common overlord it is unsurprising then that some of these hill forts would have lost their strategic importance and that the costs of maintaining them would have been judged to great slowly their populations would have dwindled as an ever greater proportion of people came to live instead in far less elaborate sites across the southeast enclosed towns known as APPA domes started to emerge many of them larger and more urbanized than their hill fault precursors by the time we reach the first century BC some were dispensed with walls entirely many of these towns would go on to form the core of cities that are still around today including modern Colchester and Winchester so if these hill fort sites were no longer the key feature of British society what was the answer is simple trade we've said little so far of how trade evolved over the course of the Iron Age in our last episode we covered how the bronze networks that dominated Britain in the past have collapsed during the early first millennium BC with large amounts of the material being taken out of circulation by the early 8th century BC however this bronze crisis seems to have passed and in fact there is evidence of continued trade in bronze around this time between Britain and the rest of Europe to the south and the west of Britain in a so-called lianbao zone we see imports of high led axes from northwestern France many of which continued to be deposited in votive hoards in eastern Britain trade links with central Europe developed as shown by the presence of bronze hallstatt swords and tools then within only 50 years things would change once more continental imports of metal items began to dry up by 750 BC trade with Ireland had ceased and for the next two centuries Britain would receive only a trickle of the goods at once new it's unlikely that continental trade ceased entirely during this time yes the amount of metal items arriving in Britain would diminish but this doesn't mean that trade in other or perishable commodities such as wool of foodstuffs would have ceased in many coastal zones there is evidence of continental pottery styles appearing throughout the 8th and the 7th centuries BC along with limited examples of trade along the Thames Valley up until the 6th century BC but it isn't until the beginning of the 5th century BC that large-scale trade with Europe returned and by this time the goods on offer had changed radically the source of these new goods appeared around 600 BC with the founding of a Greek colony on the southern coast of France now the modern city of Marseille this new settlement was soon followed by others along the coast a matte beginning of new trade links with the elites of Central Europe over the next century a new trading zone would form from eastern France to southern Germany with luxury Mediterranean goods appearing amongst the feasts and burials of the house tat chieftains the best example of this can be found in an elaborate burial unearthed in the village of hocked off in southwestern Germany around 5:30 BC a man was laid to rest here under a 6-meter burial mound with in his tomb were found elaborate grave goods including a decorated carriage and a greek-style bronze couch and cauldron these types of grave goods remain common within central europe until the beginning of the fifth century BC after which these elite zones became more dispersed to the west these centres would come to focus on borscht man and Massell moment was known as the Latin culture this later set of elites was distinguished from the halsted chieftains by their development of a distinctive family of artwork that reinterpreted Mediterranean designs the more local flavor known as Celtic all attend art this new style began to incorporate running spiral motifs that like had been popular in Northern Europe since at least Neolithic times and by the beginning of the 4th century BC this artwork would take hold in Britain in a big way as with the arrival of iron working the exact method by which this artwork made its way across the channel has been controversial for a long time it was associated by historians with the latest in a series of Celtic invasions into Britain and Ireland indeed it is known that around the end of the fifth century BC the societies that had supported these elite --let end zones in Europe were collapsing likely as a result of overpopulation throughout the next century many of these people's would migrate southwards into Italy eastwards into the Carpathian Basin and then on into Greece and Anatolia these migrations are well attested to amongst ancient writers and indeed Rome itself was sacked by one of these migrating tribes around 390 BC but in Britain there seems to be a distinct lack of agricultural evidence for such an invasion local settlement styles remain distinctly British with people living in round houses rather than the square houses of the continent what genetic evidence exists also shows strong continuity with the bronze age population of Britain ruling out any theories of mass migration instead this Latin art style seems to have made its way into Britain as so many of our innovations had before it through trade in elite goods but given what we have just covered you might be surprised to learn that there is evidence or two more limited migrations into britain around this time the first took place somewhere between the second century and first century BC and is known to us from the writings of julius caesar in his book the Gallic war he describes the migration of a group of people known as the Belgian into southern Britain originating from somewhere in Belgic Gaul he describes them as Raiders who arrived in modern Hampshire to plunder only to stay and settle the second migration however is more unusual and it occurs far away from Gaul along the eastern coast of northern Britain dating from the early 4th century BC the Arras culture of eastern and northern Yorkshire has long provoked controversy amongst archaeologists here a series of elite burials have been on earth characterized by their inclusion of a two wheeled chariot within a square ditched enclosure in almost all cases the occupants of these burials were placed within the body of the chariot often accompanied by a sword or a mirror not only are these features similar to those found in burials in northern France for the presence of earlier were 10 decorations on these grave Goods also hints at a continental origin based on these features it has been theorized these burials represent a migration of a Gallic tribe into Britain whose distinctive burial practices continued for centuries after their arrival if this migration did occur then it was likely more limited than that of the Belgium whilst the designs of the grave Goods within this tomb have a continental flavour they are clearly of British manufacture moreover the burials themselves differ from burials on the continent and that the vehicles themselves are often found disassembled but the exception of three vehicles found at ferry bridge hexton more and a lonely burial outside of Yorkshire at Newbridge in Edinburgh excavations of Iron Age buildings within these areas also show continuity with the round houses of the rest of Britain rather than with the square dwellings common in the rest of Europe these distinctly British features have even led some archaeologists to suggest that these burials are a form of emulation by the local elites rather than signs of an invasion despite this the idea of some form of migration remains difficult to dismiss this possibility is even reflected in the name given by the Romans to the tribes of this area the Parisi the same name is that of a Gallic tribe of northern France whose name is still reflected in that country's capital today turning our attention back to trade we know that by the time these Latin art styles were arriving in Britain the wider world was becoming more aware of what these distant islands had to offer by the fourth century BC trade links were growing between southern Britain and the Mediterranean world the primary form of this trade was in tin a material that was becoming of increased importance amongst the elite bronze myths of the Mediterranean perhaps a very first mention of Britain by a foreign writer came within this context it's not certain but in his history Herodotus mentions a set of western Iowans known as the caseta rides the principal source from which ancient Greece received their tin for a more definite reference we can turn to authors such as Buffet as' whose late 4th century BC voyage we covered in our last episode whilst his firsthand writings are now lost excerpts have come down to us from the works of the later Greek author the odorous of Sicily in his bibliotheca historica he describes the tin trade of a region known as balerion now confirmed to be modern Cornwall according to Diodorus the inhabitants would mine the rich alluvial tin first extracting the ore then melting it down into small knuckle sized ingots for transport these ingots were then exported by the island of ictus to Gaul where they were transported by foot to the southern Greek ports the exact location of this Islander victus is difficult to determine two major candidates have been mooted either sent michael's mount near Penzance on mount batson from maan tree in Plymouth Sound archaeologists have even on earth knuckle sized pieces of tin from the waters around mountbatten though unfortunately for us they remain undateable by the late second century BC maritime trade links between southern Britain and the continent had developed such that we start to see Mediterranean Goods arriving in large quantities in British ports the immediate cause of this was the establishment of the Roman colony of Narbo Martius in southern Gaul around 118 B see this establishment led in turn to the development of the province of Trance Alpina to which eager Roman merchants would have flocked in order to take advantage of new trading opportunities soon goods such as Spanish and Italian wine tableware figs and black cord and pottery were making their way across goal to brittany home to southern britain's strongest trading partners from here his only took a short voyage across the channel the vast quantities of these goods to begin arriving in British ports evidence for one of these has been found off the coast of Devon here around the early 1st century BC the port of Hengistbury head suddenly came into prominence as a center of continental trade large quantities of Roman wine and for I have since been excavated alongside bronze cups and shards of colored glass in addition to these Mediterranean Goods shipments of British commodities have also been found at this site including iron tin grain shale and decorative metals such as gold and silver along with neighbouring ports such as Poole Harbour Green Island and ham worthy it seems that Hengistbury head would have acted as an early form of international distribution center from which Goods would have made their way further east and west along the coasts of Britain here they soon fell into the hands of chieftains and kings alike giving them their first tastes of the luxuries of Rome and by this time these goods will also be accompanied by a new innovation currency the first coins appear in the British archaeological record around the beginning of the 2nd century BC originating from Belgic Gaul the first issues known as galo Belgic a and B appeared in quantity throughout the Thames Maui and the southern coastal areas of Britain through the next century and other two issues would appear in a more widely dispersed fashion minted in gold these coins were certainly considered high status items ones that appear to have been liberally paid out to the Britons by the tribes of the mainland rather than being a day-to-day currency it seems likely that these coins would have acted as high status gifts perhaps paid out by Belgic tribes to British kings in return for continued trade on military aid the final issue of these coins known as galo Belgic II Dwarfs all those that came before it it is estimated that it took more than six thousand kilos of gold to mint with its payment perhaps being made secure British help in a war that we will cover shortly so far on this episode we've talked a lot about elites we've covered the different types of settlements in Britain and the agricultural innovations that would have shaped individual societies but what would life have been like for the average man and woman in the 1st millennium BC what languages would they have spoken what gods would they have worshipped and after they died how would their remains have been disposed of well the answer to all the above is it depends on where they lived there is something of a popular myth that life in Iron Age Britain would have had a common blueprint often the people this time are presented as sharing a common Celtic culture worshipping the same gods and even speaking the same language but the truth is the outside of a common family of languages the cultures and beliefs of these communities would have varied widely in fact if we were to transplant a man who lived in Kent during the 1st century BC to the western shores of Scotland he may have had no more luck understanding the locals than if he were suddenly expected to converse in Greek or Latin even if communication was possible he would have found that these people knew nothing of mainland Europe and perhaps would never have heard of the gods that he worshiped so what can we say in a general sense about the people of late Iron Age Britain most of them would have spoken some form of Celtic language from whose family the modern languages of Welsh Breton Cornish Manx and both Scottish and Irish Gaelic are ultimately derived these languages likely developed from existing indo-european precursors along the Alps of Central Europe though some dissenters such as Sir barry Cunliffe trace their origin to the iberian peninsula most of Britain's occupants would still have been farmers of historias with their farmsteads being either communal or self-contained depending on the region outside of elite burials most people's remains would have been disposed of through a process of excavation or inhumation the cremation practices of the Bronze Age having now fallen out of favour and when it comes to religious practices that's where things start to get a little complicated in our last episode we discuss the emergence of rituals associated with the deposition of large amounts of bronze items throughout the rivers and lakes of Britain this discontinued in western britain until the early iron age until these bronze offerings finally dried up around the mid 7th century BC but the disappearance of bronze from these hoards didn't mean that they stopped entirely in fact there is evidence that centers such as flack fen in Cambridgeshire remained active throughout the iron age only abating during the Roman period and around the mid Swift century BC iron began to take the place of bronze within these hoards with this new material also came new religious science signs of one of these Iron Age centres can still be found today in Lincolnshire near the town of fiskerton here along the edge of the river Witham a long wooden platform was built around 457 BC as with flag fen large number of offerings have been found in the area nearby including iron swords and spearheads along with a large variety of tools it seems this walkway was refreshed every generation for over a century and from the quality of the tools deposited here we can see that the rituals conducted were taken every bit as seriously as their Bronze Age precursors sites like fiskerton have been found for out the Thames Valley and it now seems like with that these walkways were common in Britain throughout this time these walkways are far from the only types of structures from which these depositions would have been made many sites would have been far less sophisticated consisting millia the convenient rock formation or riverbank this is the case in Flint carried back in Anglesey where a large collection of metal work has been unearthed including a set of neck chains that could only have been used to bind captives and if we broaden our horizon beyond water offerings we see other signs of ritual worship in Britain old trees unusual rock formations or large forest Grove's all appear to have been places where the gods would have been honored evidence of the latter can still be seen in traces of the Gallic word Nemeton meaning woodland sanctuary it is incorporated into many place names across Britain it has even been suggested that perhaps Britain's most impressive hoards were originally deposited in one of these groves found in Norfolk thus neti sham hoards consists of large deposits of coins scrap metal and finely crafted stalks made from different combinations of gold silver and electrum these stalks represent the pinnacle of native British metalworking and display the sheer wealth available to their crafters the icy knee so valuable with these objects in fact that it seems ultimately only the gods were allowed to possess them so what types of gods would have been worshipped at these centres going by surviving inscriptions many of them dating from the Roman period there seemed to have been hundreds of gods in Britain many of them tied the distinctive places in addition to these there also seem to have been specific tribal gods some of whom lent their name to the peoples who worshipped them gods of the underworld are also hinted at by the presence of sacred wells and shaft offerings such as those found at Willis furred in Wiltshire sadly for many of these gods we now know little more than their names and what information we do have about them often comes to us by the way of the Romans who co-opted many native gods upon their arrival in Britain examples of this can be found in bath where inscriptions can still be found dedicated the British goddess soleus who the Romans conflated with their goddess of wisdom Minerva a similar example can be found in the North weather goddess of Britain's largest tribe the Brigantes was often conflated the Roman goddess Victoria in addition to these homegrown God's a few international deities are also known to have had cults in Britain such as a poner god of horses the sky God Tyrannis or su Salas God of agriculture and wine with all these different gods to venerate the spiritual world of Britain would likely have been a confusing place both the ordinary man and woman to venture but luckily for them they didn't have to do so alone according to the accounts of both Greek and Roman authors by then the world of gods and spirits had become the domain of another elite group within society the Druids the exact nature of the Druids is one that still eludes historians and archaeologists alike to this day despite their long history they left behind no writings of their own and the few texts that do mention them come to us by the way of foreign authors the earliest of these accounts are often more sympathetic casting the druids in the archetype of the noble savage but when we examine later Roman accounts by authors such as Caesar Diodorus of Sicily and Tacitus it seems that they were all too eager to attribute to the druids all manner of atrocities according to them the Druids were an elite class within British and Gaulish society who controlled religious observance and conducted proper sacrifices in the case of disputes they were usually called on to act as judges and to decide appropriate punishments and compensation according to Pliny they also had access to vast herbal knowledge and held a particular reverence for mistletoe and the Oaks upon which it grew if we believe ceases account then they also taught that a person's soul would be reborn in another body after death a belief they supposedly used to inspire bravery amongst their warriors indeed it seems that to risk the wrath of the druids was to risk being cut off from the gods entirely or even becoming an unwilling participant their rituals much has been made of the claims of human sacrifices conducted by the druids both Strabo and Diodorus wrote of ritual killings whilst Tacitus writing in the 1st century AD made similar claims of human sacrifice among the druids of Anglesey quote it was their religion to drench their altars in the blood of prisoners and to consult their gods are the means of human entrails both Strabo and caesar described a similar ritual that was supposedly practiced amongst the druids of gaul wherein wooden cages would be filled with all manner of men and animals then set alight according to them these people were often criminals though innocence were sometimes used supply ran low so how trustworthy are these accounts we might be tempted to dismiss these writings as Roman propaganda but unfortunately there are enough common threads amongst these authors that their claims cannot be dismissed entirely in an ideal world we would turn at this point to the archaeological record in order to validate these claims but unfortunately for us what evidence we do have is limited it's true that buildings resembling shrines have been found within the interiors of various hill forts and settlements throughout Britain a few tantalizing items have even been on earth such as the proposed divinatory spoons discovered at Crosby Ravens worth in Cumbria on the whole however we currently lack the evidence to say whether druids existed at all in Britain during this time but there is one aspect of these offers accounts about which we can be reasonably certain and that is that human sacrifice was a reality in Iron Age Britain evidence of this has been unearthed at the site of lindo in Cheshire here the well-preserved remains of a man were discovered bearing the appearance of having undergone a ritual death first he would have suffered a blow to the head after which he was first garroted and then finally had his throat cut after death his body was deposited in a bog perhaps to honor a specific God or to mark out a tribal boundary several similar bodies bearing evidence of ritual wounds have also been recovered from bogs in Ireland Osterman and animal remains have also been found sealed within grain storage pits in hill forts across southern Britain whilst some of these bodies appear to have been carefully placed within the pits after death others show signs of violent dismemberment consistent with ritual sacrifice perhaps these victims were provided as sacrifices to the gods of the underworld to ensure that the grain held within these pits remain safe and fertile throughout the long winter months whatever the case it is not too great a leap to equate these practices the druidic sacrifices reported by Roman authors if the Druids did exist in Britain their exact origin point is difficult to determine one hypothesis is that they emerged during the later Bronze Age around the same time as the appearance of the warrior elites another more fringe idea is that the roots of this sect date back as far as the arrival of the beaker culture as we've so much surrounding the Druids it is unlikely we'll ever know for sure by the 1st century BC a recognizable patchwork of tribes had emerged across both Britain and Ireland across the southeast tribes such as the katsu Villani the I scene II the tree no vantes and the can't I lived in large appa domes and unenclosed settlements to the west the Bell joy and the deer at Regis held sway whilst in Cornwall the demony would ruin one fashion or another for a millennium to come across Wales tribes such as the so year's the demo tie and the Olduvai sees reigned over a patchwork of small densely occupied enclosures Midlands the Daboo knee and the Coryell toffee held sway asked in northern England the tribal Confederation of the Brigantes dominated in Scotland a multitude of Pictish kingdoms displayed their own distinct set of languages and cultures whilst across the Irish Sea for major royal sites were emerging based around the centres of Terra nerve an RAF Croghan and na Colin then right around the middle point at the 1st century BC a Roman general makes his first fateful landing into this divided Britain Caesar had arrived it would be impossible here to do full justice to the events that brought Julius Caesar to the shores of Kent suffice it to say in the last two decades of his life it enjoyed an increasingly distinguished military career in both the eastern and the western reaches of Europe in 60 BC he formed an alliance with the leading politicians Gaius Pompey and Marcus Crassus in the following year he was elected as consul one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic at the end of his term in 58 BC he was awarded the governorship of the Roman controlled areas of southern goal over the next four years he would use these provinces as a base to conduct an ambitious war of conquest ending in the subjugation of the entire region now in his mid forties he turned his attention across the channel the mysterious island of Albion it is difficult to judge Caesars exact goals for his expeditions to Britain in his book the Gallic war he cites his cause aid given by the British to his enemies in Belgic Gaul this is certainly a plausible enough reason but given his success in conquering call it is difficult to dismiss the idea that Caesar would have harbored similar ambitions for Britain and the very least he would have considered the feat of viable act of propaganda much as he had his expedition across the Rhine earlier in 55 BC whatever his intentions Caesars first crossing into Rome was delayed by more than a year first as he dealt with the rebellion by the Veneto of southern Brittany and then by conflicts with the tribes of Belgic Gaul and Germany by the time he had mustered the 80 vessels needed to transport two legions across the channel it was already late August the summer was almost over by his own account Caesars knowledge of Britain was limited to what he could gather from the merchants and traders of Gaul who claimed to know a little of what lay beyond the coastline to learn more of the island he dispatched a subordinate Gaius valo census to survey the coastline of Britain in the meantime he sent an ambassador in the form a Gauss chieftain named Kamiya's whom the British promptly imprisoned faced with this and the apparent failure of all your census to find an appropriate landing spot Caesar found himself taking a leap into the unknown departing from Gaul on the 26th of August 55 BC he landed somewhere in the vicinity of deal in Kent by his account the British were waiting for him forcing the Romans to cut their way ashore the battle was a close-run affair but it ended in a roman victory the local tribes retreated then sent envoy's with offers of Allegiance and hostages this first voyage proved little more than a reconnaissance mission Caesar shortly after his arrival a storm wrecked many of his ships seeing their weakness the local tribes attacked again with the battle ending in a narrow Roman victory faced now with the prospect have been trapped in Britain overwinter Caesar withdrew across the channel even his own carefully presented account can't hide that the venture had nearly been a disaster when Caesar returned to Britain in the OE July 4 54 BC he brought with him a force of an altogether different scale it consisted of five legions a force roughly equivalent to 25,000 men and one supported by over 2,000 cavalry he also brought with him a new ally in the form of man du Brey sheis son of the king of the Treena van tez after his father's death at the hands of casa villainous king of the neighbouring quatre Villani he had fled to caesar's protection where he would soon prove valuable as a political pawn this time he landed unopposed dancing quickly into Kent he fought a series of victorious battles against the local tribesmen from here he made his way northwards into the territory of the cat of Villani crossing the River Thames of what was like with the future site of London he was harried 4-ounce bike a sevillanas forces who avoided giving pitched battle despite the British campaign of attrition Caesar would eventually succeed in subjugating the Treena van tez and the other tribes of the area who whom he learned the location Castle vilanis's stronghold the exact modern site of this stronghold remains in dispute to this day but the most likely sites arriver ravensberg castle or Devils dike in hartfordshire here Caesar lay siege to the stronghold and after the defeat of British reinforcements called up from Kent Casa valannus had no choice but to offer terms Caesar secured his usual agreement an annual tribute was to be sent to Rome along with hostages manda broscius was restored as the king of the now Roman allied Treena ban says Luke a sevillanas agreed to leave in peace with these favourable terms concluded Caesar returned to Gaul taking with him a large number of prisoners and ever-growing prestige Caesars an expedition to Britain would be his last by the time he departed these shores rebellion was already brewing in Belgic gone Caesar would put down this insurrection but it was merely the pre allude to a larger campaign led by the king of the overni Vercingetorix this new revolt grew to include most of Gaul and would threaten to rollback Caesars conquests before its narrow defeat in 51 BC local uprisings would continue over the next two decades but by the turn of the Millenium goal was securely within the grasp of Rome it would remain that way for another four centuries it is important that we consider Caesars invasions of Britain from the perspective of his intended audience to the citizens of Rome merely setting foot in Britain would have been a semi-mythical endeavor akin to the moon landings of the 20th century the sheer scale of the feat can be seen from the 20 days of Thanksgiving ordered by the Senate when news of Caesars landing arrived but when it comes to long term benefits its legacy is more disputable it is doubtful that the tribes of southern Britain were meaningfully subjugated nor was a permanent roman foothold established across the channel perhaps the most that could be said is that Caesar came away from a perilous adventure of his reputation intact but in doing so he also demonstrated to the Roman world that whilst Britain was distant it was not inaccessible fameless' has Caesars expeditions to Britain our it was really his invasion of Gaul that changed everything for the people of southern Britain there was no way they could have known it at the time but the arrival of Roman power in northern Europe brought a new player into British politics smaller tribes whose survival at once relied on complex alliances now had a potential ally sitting across the channel whose protection could be secured with a nominal tribute and a few hostages the more powerful southern tribes may have resented the arrival of this interloper but even to them the benefits of Roman trade would have been too good to pass up as we detailed earlier Gaul had long been the favorite trading ground of these elites and its takeover by Rome would have forced them to seek new alliances they wish to retain their access to luxury goods over the next hundred years this trade would increasingly romanize large areas of southeastern England as with the return of hostages educated in Roman manors by the time Rome turned its attention back to Britain in the 1st century AD many of these tribes were already trapped addicted to the luxury goods but only their Continental neighbor could provide next time on a history of Britain the iron age comes crashing to an end as the most powerful empire in the world turns its gaze across the channel through a process of divide and conquer more than half of Britain would soon fall under Roman control life on its shores would never be the same again [Music]

Channel: The Histocrat

Views: 604,226

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Keywords: Britain, History, England, Scotland, Wales, celts, romans, julius caesar, ireland, prehistory, stone age, bronze age, iron age, hengistbury, chariot, halstatt, hill fort, plough, burial, farming, ancient, history series, smelting, broch, crannog, histocrat, the histocrat, art, Roman empire

Id: 0fHTxPH1gc8

Length: 74min 17sec (4457 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 20 2020