lesson 4.pptx about The Prehistoric Era : Sociocultural Studies

Presentation about The Pre historic Era

1. ESTUDIOS SOCIOCULTURALES Y LITERARIOS PREHISTORIC ERA Prof. Agustina Rivera

2. PREHISTORIC ENGLAND (BEFORE 43AD) Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age

3. STONE AGE (3 PERIODS) PALAEOLITHIC NEOLITHIC MESOLITHIC

4. The Earliest Humans In 2010 archaeologists working near Happisburgh in Norfolk uncovered flint tools dated to about 900,000 years ago. The people who used them were early humans (known as hominoids) who periodically visited Britain in warmer eras between Ice Ages. During this time Britain wasn’t an island, but a peninsula of the European continent. What is now the river Thames ran into the North Sea at Happisburgh . The oldest human remains so far found in England date from about 500,000 years ago, and belonged to a six-foot tall man of the species Homo heidelbergensis. Shorter, stockier Neanderthals visited Britain between 300,000 and 35,000 years ago, followed by the direct ancestors of modern humans. Ice Age humans created the earliest known cave art in England at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire about 13,000 years ago.

5. HUNTERS AND GATHERERS (9500–4000 BC) Continuous human occupation of Britain began as the climate improved at the end of the last Ice Age. People in Britain at this time were still hunters and gatherers who made use of wild plants and animals. Although most of these people were probably nomadic, recent discoveries of buildings suggest that some had settled lifestyles. By about 6500 BC, rising seas had inundated the land bridge with Europe, making Britain an island.

6. FIRST FARMERS (FROM 4000 BC) Perhaps the most important development in human history, farming was first introduced to Britain around 4000 BC. The people who brought the techniques to the island must have travelled from Europe by boat. Although they farmed pulses, barley and wheat, people still relied on wild food and resources. And rather than settle in one place, they still moved around within territories. These territories were focused on great communal monuments. Some were gathering places like the causewayed enclosure at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire (built about 3650 BC). Others were burial sites with impressive long barrows. Many had stone chambered tombs, such as Belas Knap, Gloucestershire, West Kennet Long Barrow, Wiltshire (both about 3650 BC), and Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire (about 3400 BC).

7. SACRED LANDSCAPES (3500–2300 BC) New types of monuments appeared in the middle and late Neolithic periods, including timber circles like Woodhenge (about 2300 BC), earth mounds such as Silbury Hill, Wiltshire (about 2400 BC), stone circles like Castlerigg , Cumbria (about 3000 BC), and earthwork henges such as Knowlton, Dorset. Henges and circles were sometimes combined. The stone circles at Avebury and Stonehenge (both about 2500 BC) are among the best examples of this. And in some places, several different types of monuments were built in the same area over long periods. You can get a good sense of these sacred landscapes at Marden Henge, Avebury and Stonehenge. During this period, flint for tools and weapons was being extracted at Grime's Graves, Norfolk (first mined between 2600 and 2200 BC).

8. BRONZE AGE (2300–800 BC) In about 2300 BC the first metal weapons and jewellery began to arrive in Britain, along with a new kind of pottery known as Beaker. People were buried with these objects in individual graves, some of which were covered with round barrows. At first the metal used was copper, but by about 2200 BC bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) was being worked in Britain. During the early Bronze Age, some people were buried in rich graves within round barrows, accompanied by exotic imported goods. These burials have been found in the area around Stonehenge, but also in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Often these burials were grouped in barrow cemeteries, such as Flowerdown Barrows, Hampshire, and Winterbourne Poor Lot Barrows, Dorset. These rich, individual burials signify a shift from the great Neolithic communal monuments. During the middle and late Bronze Age, landscapes were divided up by great field systems and people built permanent round houses, often grouped into villages such as Grimspound in Devon. Elsewhere, competition for land and a need for security prompted the construction of the earliest hillforts.

9. IRON AGE (750BC – 42 AD) The British Iron Age lasted in theory from the first significant use of iron for tools and weapons in Britain to the Romanisation of the southern half of the island. The Romanised culture is termed Roman Britain and is considered to supplant the British Iron Age. The tribes living in Britain during this time are often popularly considered to be part of a broadly Celtic culture, but in recent years this has been disputed. At a minimum, "Celtic" is a linguistic term without an implication of a lasting cultural unity connecting Gaul with the British Isles throughout the Iron Age. The Brythonic languages spoken in Britain at this time, as well as others including the Goidelic and Gaulish languages of neighbouring Ireland and Gaul respectively, certainly belong to the group known as Celtic languages. However it cannot be assumed that particular cultural features found in one Celtic-speaking culture can be extrapolated to the others.

10. Iron Age beliefs in Britain The Romans described a variety of deities worshipped by the people of Northwestern Europe. Barry Cunliffe perceives a division between one group of gods relating to masculinity, the sky and individual tribes and a second group of goddesses relating to associations with fertility, the earth and a universality that transcended tribal differences. Wells and springs had female, divine links exemplified by the goddess Sulis worshipped at Bath. In Tacitus' Agricola, he notes the similarity between both religious and ritual practices of the pre-Roman British and the Gauls . Religious practices revolved around offerings and sacrifices, sometimes human but more often involving the ritual slaughter of animals or the deposition of metalwork, especially war booty. Weapons and horse trappings have been found in the bog at Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey and are interpreted as votive offerings cast into a lake. Numerous weapons have also been recovered from rivers, especially the Thames, but also the Trent and Tyne. Some buried hoards of jewellery are interpreted as gifts to the earth gods.

11. Economy of Iron Age Britain Trade links developed in the Bronze Age and beforehand provided Great Britain with numerous examples of continental craftsmanship. Swords especially were imported, copied and often improved upon by the natives. Early in the period, Hallstatt slashing swords and daggers were a significant import although, by the mid 6th century, the volume of goods arriving seems to have declined, possibly due to more profitable trade centres appearing in the Mediterranean. La Tène culture items (usually associated with the Celts) appeared in later centuries and, again, these were adopted and adapted with alacrity by the locals. There also appears to have been a collapse in the bronze trade during the early Iron Age, which can be viewed in three ways: 1. Steady transition: the development of iron parallel to a diminishing bronze system. 2. Rapid abandonment; iron undermines bronze and takes over its social function. 3. Bronze crisis: severe reduction in the supply of bronze allows the iron to replace it. With regard to animal husbandry, cattle represented a significant investment in pre-Roman Britain as they could be used as a source of portable wealth, as well as providing useful domestic by-products such as milk, cheese and leather. In the later Iron Age, an apparent shift is visible, revealing a change in dominance from cattle rearing to that of sheep. Economically, sheep are significantly less labour-intensive , requiring fewer people per animal.