ORIGINS OF BRITAIN By Grando Leonardo and Pavoni Francesco

Overviews The Iron Age of the British Isles covers the period from about 800 BC to the Roman invasion of 43 AD, and follows on from the Bronze Age. The best known and most visible remains of the Iron Age are hill forts. Nearly 3,000 examples are known from across the British Isles, ranging in size from small enclosures of less than one hectare, to massive, multi-ditched sites like Maiden Castle in Dorset and Old Oswestry in Shropshire. Burial practices in Iron Age Britain were extremely varied. In some regions, such as southern England, formal burials were rare, with only a relatively small number of adult burials known from pits inside hill forts and other settlements.

Stonehenge By 2500 BC, Britain was not an isolated and sparsely populated European outcrop. It is believed that several million people inhabited these shores, and like today, not all of them were born and bred Britons. There's a lot that we think we know about Stonehenge. We're almost certain, for example, that the great prehistoric monument was built in several phases spanning hundreds of years, from around 3000 BC to 1600 BC. It was a construction project that tested ancient ingenuity and prehistoric technology to the limit. A consensus among archaeologists on what Stonehenge was actually for has proved as difficult to build as the huge stone circle itself.

Tribes Before Roman times 'Britain' was just a geographical entity, and had no political meaning, and no single cultural identity. The people living in Britain were descendants of the first homo sapiens who arrived in Europe – years ago. They lived by fishing, hunting and collecting fruit, nuts, berries, etc. The Celts didn't leave books behind because they didn't read and write But the Greeks and Romans wrote about the Iron Age Celts. They tell us that the Celts lived in tribes, they wore gold and loved to fight and drink wine. They also wrote about the power of the Celts' priests, who were called druids. The druids knew how to keep their gods happy - they sacrificed food, precious objects, and even people to their gods and goddesses. The Roman conquest started in AD 43Rome only ever conquered half the island. The future Scotland remained beyond Roman government, although the nearby presence of the empire had major effects.

Death and Burial The Bronze Age man discovered there had been buried not far from the great temple of Stonehenge. Excavation work started on a Friday morning, and the reason for the difference between the Roman graves and the two other features rapidly became clear. The features were indeed graves, but the Early Bronze Age pottery in one of them showed that they were over 2,500 years older than the Roman graves. And the grave with the pottery was unusually large. Some archaeologists have argued that, for the period in question, there is no certain evidence for the sort of social differences that might suggest a ranked society.

Sites and artefacts There are Iron Age sites, reconstructions and museums across England, Wales and Scotland. Many of the sites listed below are under the guardianship of English Heritage, Historic Scotland, CADW (Wales) and the National Trust. Cambridgeshire, Wandlebury hill-fort, Stapleford (TL ). Situated on the hill above the Gog Magog golf course, with easy access. Dorset, Maiden Castle hill-fort, Winterborne Monkton, near Dorchester (SY ). English Heritage. Probably the most famous hill-fort in Britain. Hampshire, Danebury Ring hill-fort, Nether Wallop, near Andover (SU ). This hill-fort was the site of the most extensive excavations ever carried out at an Iron Age hill-fort in Britain. Worcestershire, Bredon Hill hill-fort, Bredon's Norton (SO ). Can be approached by footpaths from Great Comberton or Kemberton.

Living in the Iron Age The period known as the Iron Age lasted in Britain for about 800 years (from c.750 BC to AD 43). Harvested crops were stored in either granaries that were raised from the ground on posts, or in bell-shaped pits 2-3m (6-7ft) deep, dug into the chalk landscape. Some 4,500 of these storage pits have been found within the hillfort interior at Danebury in Hampshire, and if they were all used to store crops, this would have essentially made the site one large fortified granary. It is thought that since farming played such an important role in the Iron Age community, the religious festivals would have followed the same seasonal pattern, based around the agricultural year.