INVADERS AND SETTLERS

Britain was the first capitalist country, a pioneer of modern industrial

civilization. But it is important to remember that, while ancient civilizations
flourished in Africa and Asia, then in Greece and Rome, life in Britain was still
primitive. In the history of world civilizations Britain was a very late starter.
The settlement of Britain began in the New Stone Age (Neolithic times) with
tribal groups coming from the Iberian Peninsula ( ).
They came by sea from about 4,000 BC, settling near the coasts of south and west
Britain as well as in Ireland. They brought with them the agricultural methods
which had been developed around the Mediterranean coasts, the raising of cattle
and the planting of wheat. As the lowlands of Britain were still covered with
forests, these settlers lived on hills such as the chalk (a variety of a limestone)
uplands (/ ) of southern England. Remains
found at Windmill Hill, Avebury, Wiltshire, have led historians to describe this
period as that of the Windmill Hill culture.
These tribes did not yet use metals, but they made axes and arrowheads
from flint (a form of quartz mainly used for striking fire), which was mined in the
chalk of Norfolk (East Anglia) on quite a large scale (in big numbers) and traded
for other products all over Britain.
The farming skills of those tribes brought an increase in production which
gave them a surplus ( ) over basic needs, enabling the tribes to
support a ruling class. The existence of tribal chiefs was shown in their burial
arrangements ( ) in "long barrows" (
), mounds of earth ( ) still to be seen today. In this
period the large stone circles of Stonehenge, on the chalk plateau of Salisbury
Plain, were begun. These seem to have been partly religious in origin, and partly
built as an observatory, used for planning the times of farming operations in a
society with no calendar.
Sometime later, after about 2,000 BC, came similar farming people from the
east and south-east, the present day France and Belgium. They brought the use
of bronze and a special kind of pottery, from which they have been called the
Beaker Folk ( ). [i.e. a prehistoric
people living in Europe in the early Bronze Age whose culture was characterized
by bell beakers ( ) buried with their dead in round barrows]
There was also the first development of spinning and weaving to make cloth,
both of wool and linen [ ]. These people seem to have mixed peacefully with the
former settlers.
After most of the British Isles had been populated by these tribes, further
settlers came from the Rhine valley. They were successive tribes of Celts, generally taller, fair people whose main common-feature was their language. About 700
BC came the Gauls () from the upper Rhineland; about 500 BC the
Brythons () (a name which evolved (=developed into) into Britons
() the citizens of Britain) and about 100 BC the Belgae (), a
mixture of Celts and Germanic tribes. The Brythons brought iron to Britain and the

Belgae better ploughs and iron tools, including axes with which some clearing of
the forests in river valleys began. Their society was still tribal, with some
remaining features of primitive communism. They retained links with related tribes
on the continent and used money for trade. They were mostly farmers, and with
their better tools they built larger villages. A significant development, reflecting the
fears of continental peoples in face of Roman expansion, was the use of hill forts
and ditches for defense or, in some places, for example Glastonbury in Somerset,
lake villages. Gradually the Celts spread across Britain and mixed with earlier
settlers, a mixture which was the basis of the British population.
Soon after the Belgae came to Britain the Roman Empire was extended to
the homelands of the area of what is now northern France and Belgium. These
tribes were stubborn in defense of their independence, and their resistance was
supported by those Belgae who had come to Britain. Julius Caesar brought troops
to attack Britain in 55 and 54 BC. His attacks were resisted by Cassivellaunus
(), the chief of all the Celts in southern Britain. Not until a hundred
years later in 43 AD the Romans invaded and occupied most of Britain.
Fertile lands like Britain gave the Romans more space for settlement and
provided slave labor. The military conquest of Britain was soon achieved, but there
was a revolt in 60 AD led by Queen Boudicca (), when London and two
other Roman towns were burned down. After this revolt had been crushed there
was no more opposition in occupied Britain, but the resistance of the tribes in the
far north (now Scotland) prevented occupation of most of that area. Indeed, the
Romans had to built two walls for their defense across Britain, one not far from the
present Scottish border and one further north, beyond Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Roman civilization in Britain lasted for about 400 years and left many traces
in towns and roads. Architecture was one of the main achievements of the Romans, and many stone buildings were constructed. After the Romans left many of
these were completely destroyed by new farming settlers with no use for towns,
but there are a few impressive remains, such as the baths, using natural hot
springs, in Bath (near Bristol). The straight roads which crossed the whole country, primarily for military use, were another feature of Roman life which remained
long after the Romans had gone.
Technical progress under the Romans was very limited, except in building.
With plenty of slave labor, there was no use to look for labor saving technologies.
Better weapons were developed, but better ploughs were not considered important
in that parasitic slave-owning society. Roman exploitation of Britain meant above
all the increased mining of mineral wealth: iron, tin, copper, gold. The Romans
were noted for their organization, but as this was based on slave labor it left no
traces in later society. The same was true of Roman law, dealing mainly with
property rights in a slave-owning society, so this was largely neglected for a
thousand years after the end of the Roman empire. Thus very little trace remained
of Roman civilization after the Romans left Britain. Some upper-class Britons
were assimilated into Roman society, but the mass of the British population were
rigidly controlled by the Romans and had no role in social organization. They were
thus helpless after about 407 AD, when Roman legions were withdrawn from

Britain to defend Rome. As the Roman empire collapsed there were more and more
raids from across the North Sea and then the occupation of much of Britain by
Germanic tribes.
The end of the Roman Empire has been seen by bourgeois historians as the
work of "barbarians", beginning the less civilized "Dark Ages". Socially and
economically, however, it was an advance to a more developed social order. The
Romans had ruled over a slave society which in fact stopped the development of
the forces of production. The tribal societies which followed produced a feudal
type of society in which the lower classes had a degree of independence in working
on their own land, while in return they had to produce a surplus for their lords.