Britain is an island and this fact is more important than any other in understanding its history. The British Isles were the object of different foreign invasions for many times. The conquerors always had to have a dialogue with the conquered, producing sooner or later a mixed society with elements from both. The island enters […]

In prehistoric times Britain was joined to the rest of the continent. The first human inhabitants of Britain, and many of its animal inhabitants, came there over dry land. Towards the end of the Ice Age the mighty prehistoric river, which joined the present-day Thames with the Rhine, overwhelmed the land joining Britain to the […]

PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY  ON  THE  TERRITORY  OF  THE BRITISH  ISLES At  the  dawn  of  their  history  the  peoples  on  this  planet  lived  in  primitive  societies.  These  primitive  peoples,  wherever  they  lived,  began  their  long  path  of  progress  with  stone  tools,  but  they  did  not  reach  the  same  level  of  civilization  at  the  same  time  in  different  countries.

During  the  period  from  the  6th  to  the  3rd  century  В.  C.  a  people  called  the  Celts  spread  across  Europe  from  the  east  to  the  west.

Like  all  the  ancient  peoples  the  Celts  made  up  many  legends  about  their  gods  and  heroes.  The  legends  were  passed  down  from  generation  to  generation.  They  were  written  down  in  the  Middle  Ages  but  they  describe  far  older  times  when  the  tribal  way  of  life  predominated  among  the  Celts.  The  chroniclers  and  writers  translated  the  […]

For  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  people  lived  under  the  primitive  communal  system.  Labour  gradually  changed  the  life  of  man.  The  Iberians  knew  only  stone  tools  and  weapons;  the  Celts  produced  tools  of  metal—first,  of  bronse,  that  is,  a  mixture  of  copper  and  tin,  and,  later,  of  much  harder  metal,  iron.

To  this  day  the  descendants  of  the  ancient  Celts  live  on  the  territory  of  the  British  Isles.  The  Welsh  who  live  in Wales  are  of  Celtic  origin.  People  in  most  parts  of  Wales  speak  Welsh,  a  Celtic  tongue.  In  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  as  well  as  in  the  western  parts  of  Ireland  the  people  speak  a  […]

Read  the  extracts  from  the  saga  given  below  and  see  what  information  you  can  gather  about  the  early  inhabit­ants  of  the  British  Isles  and  what  conclusions  you  can  draw  on  the  basis  of  this  information.