Ancient Brits

[PeterW]

Watched a program about ancient Brits last night. By ancient I mean centuries before the Egyptians were building pyramids.

According to some archeological discoveries in the past year or so the ancient brits were very far advanced from the skin-clad nomadic hunting tribes depicted in many history books. They had well-ordered settlements, they grew crops, baked unleavened bread and kept livestock, a sort of pre-historic ancestor of the sheep, which they herded using dogs very similar to today's Collies. They had a system of laws and justice - harsh, but at least it existed. They also built a system of roads linking settlements.

Each settlement or group of settlements were ruled by a chieftan and appeared to live in peace with each other. There wasn't an overall ruler or 'king'.

They also mined copper ore both open-cast and by digging deep, long tunnels underground some of which have never been discovered before. The copper ore was alloyed with tin from Wales and Cornwall to make bronze, and some beautiful artifacts have recently been unearthed.

The tin was brought round the coast from Wales and Cornwall several hundreds of miles by sea using wooden boats, two of which were discovered near Dover during excavations for the Channel Tunnel. The amount of ore mined suggests that they had a thriving export trade in bronze implements and household wares, using the same type of wooden boats to cross the Channel to the Continental mainland.

Until a couple of years ago history books were telling us that roads, laws, farming and a justice system were brought to Britain by the Romans, but it seems the ancient Brits already had these long before Rome was built.

It seems the reason we as yet know so little about them, and why their history was hidden in myth - and badly informed Rpman accounts - is that as yet no-one has found evidence of any system of written communication.

Our heritage goes back thousands of years earlier than we suspected. I'm looking forward to part 2, next Wednesday's program.

PeterW

[John Parry]

Peter

The ancient Greeks were in awe of some people they called the Hyperboreans, who lived far to the north. They spoke of them as powerful magicians, able to freeze the sun in its tracks.

When you think of the purpose of Stonehenge, could the Greek description not have been a simple misunderstanding of what the ancient Brits were doing? And Britain is far to the north as far as the Greeks are concerned. I've often wondered if the old ABs weren't the Hyperboreans.

Regards - John

[SidW]

Ancient history is fascinating.

To add some extra perspective to Peter's story. The first pyramids were about 3000BC, so that's right for Stonehenge, the earliest part dating from the same period. There's no problemabout their technology, they shifted those massive blocks from Wales.

We're stumped for placenames for that period, and have to use our own names. So "Wales, Welsh" is anglosaxon for strange or foreign (it still survives for strange in some dialects, my grandfather and father, from Kent, used to say welsh).

So those neolithic people in the "British Isles" were not British, strictly speaking. The ancient britons were the Brythonic Kelts, who brought their name and language and way of life around 500BC. I'm half and half, my father's people are from Kent and my mother's from Cornwall. I wonder if there are still neolithic genes around? I read an article somewhere about an ancient skeleton found in a cave at Cheddar (near Bristol) and they found people with related DNA living in the vicinity.

I'll look forward to seeing that program if Swedish TV broadcasts it, I hope they do.