The Bell Beaker culture ruins, c. 2500 BC Around 2500 BC, a new pottery style arrived in Great Britain: the
Bell Beaker culture. Beaker pottery appears in the
Mount Pleasant Phase (2700–2000 BC), along with flat axes and the burial practice of
inhumation. People of this period were responsible for building
Seahenge, along with the later phases of
Stonehenge.
Silbury Hill was also built in the early Beaker period. Movement of continental Europeans brought new people to the islands from the continent. Recent tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicates that at least some of the new arrivals came from the area of modern
Switzerland. The Beaker culture displayed different behaviours from the earlier
Neolithic people and cultural change was significant, including the introduction of copper and gold metalworking after c. 2500 BC. Many of the early
henge sites seem to have been adopted by the newcomers. , Furthermore, a fundamentally different approach to burying the dead began. In contrast to the Neolithic practice of communal burials, the Bronze Age society undergoes an apparent shift towards focusing on to the individual, rather on the ancestors as a collective. For example, in the Neolithic era, a large
chambered cairn or
long barrow was used to house the dead. The 'Early Bronze Age' saw people buried in individual
barrows, also commonly known and marked on modern British
Ordnance Survey maps as tumuli, or sometimes in
cists covered with
cairns. They were often buried with a
beaker alongside the body. However, even though customs changed, barrows and burial mounds continued to be used during the Bronze Age, with smaller tombs often dug into the primary mounds. There has been debate amongst archaeologists as to whether the "Beaker people" were a race of people that
migrated to Britain
en masse from the continent or whether a Beaker cultural "package" of goods and behaviour, which eventually spread across most of Western Europe, diffused to Britain's existing inhabitants through trade across tribal boundaries. However one recent study (2017) suggests a major genetic shift in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age Britain and up to 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool may have been replaced with the coming of a people genetically similar to the Beaker people of the
Lower Rhine region (modern Netherlands/central-western Germany), which had a high proportion of
steppe ancestry. According to the evolutionary geneticist
Ian Barnes, "Following the Beaker spread, there was a population in Britain that for the first time had ancestry and skin and eye pigmentation similar to Britons today". The most famous site in Britain from this period is
Stonehenge, which had its Neolithic form elaborated extensively. Many barrows surround it and an unusual number of 'rich' burials can be found nearby, such as the
Amesbury Archer and the later
Bush Barrow. Close similarities have been noted between Stonehenge and the
Pömmelte circular enclosure in central Germany, which was built by Bell Beaker people around 2300 BC. Large
timber circles in Britain such as
Woodhenge, near to Stonehenge, are similarly dated to the early Beaker period or just before the Beaker period. Some researchers have suggested that Woodhenge may have been a monumental roofed building, though it is usually thought to have been an open-air structure. Other large circular timber structures, such as the Southern Circle inside the
Durrington Walls enclosure, may have also been roofed buildings. The Beaker people also introduced novel practices such as
mummification, burial in
log coffins and
cranial deformation to Britain. The archaeologist
Timothy Darvill has argued that Stonehenge functioned as a
solar calendar, reflecting the spread of
solar cosmologies across Northern Europe in the third millennium BC. Other researchers have emphasized the
lunar aspects of Stonehenge, such as the apparent alignment of the
Station Stone rectangle with the
Major Lunar Standstill, which occurs every 18.6 years. Various other astronomical interpretations have been proposed, such as the theory put forward by the astronomers
Gerald Hawkins and
Fred Hoyle that the ring of 56
Aubrey Holes could have been used to predict
lunar eclipses. According to the archaeologist
Euan MacKie, Stonehenge recorded both the solar and lunar cycles "in an ingenious design based on
Pythagorean triangles."
Bronze elite grave, near to Stonehenge, c. 1950 BC Several regions of origin have been postulated for the
Beaker culture, notably the Iberian Peninsula, the Netherlands and Central Europe. Part of the Beaker culture brought the skill of refining
metal to Great Britain. At first, they made items from
copper or
arsenical bronze, but by around 2200 BC, smiths had discovered how to make
tin-bronze, which is much harder than copper, by mixing copper with a small amount of
tin. With that discovery, the
Bronze Age began in Great Britain. Britain had large reserves of tin in what is now
Cornwall and
Devon in
South West England (the largest in Europe and among the largest in the world), and thus tin
mining began. South West England has the earliest evidence for tin ore exploitation in Europe. An analysis of Bronze Age–Early Iron Age tin ingots recovered from four Mediterranean shipwrecks off the coasts of Israel and southern France found that they originated from tin ores in south-west Britain. Copper was exported to the continent from sites such as the
Great Orme mine in northern
Wales, as was gold from Cornwall (notably used to make the
Nebra Sky Disc associated with the
Únětice culture in central Europe). , –1600 BC, is unique among survivals Bronze axeheads, made by
casting, were at first similar to their stone predecessors but then developed a socket for the wooden handle to fit into and a small loop or ring to make lashing the two together easier. Groups of unused axes are often found together, suggesting ritual deposits to some, but many archaeologists believe that elite groups collected bronze items and perhaps restricted their use among the wider population. Bronze swords of a graceful "leaf" shape, swelling gently from the handle before coming to a tip, have been found in considerable numbers, along with spear heads and arrow points. Bronze Age Britons were also skilled at
making jewellery from gold, as well as occasional objects like the
Rillaton Cup and
Mold Cape. Many examples have been found in graves of the wealthy
Wessex culture of Southern Britain, but they are not as frequent as Irish finds. The earliest gold objects include
gold lunulae, dating from c, 2400-2000 BC. The greatest quantities of bronze objects found in what is now
England were discovered in
East Cambridgeshire, where the most important finds were recovered in
Isleham (more than
6500 pieces). The earliest known metalworking building was found at Sigwells, Somerset, England. Several casting mould fragments were fitted to a Wilburton type sword held in Somerset County Museum. They were found in association with cereal grain that has been dated to the 12th century BC by
carbon dating. From the 13th century BC there is evidence for the use of standardised weights and weighing equipment in the trade of metals. Small gold rings have been interpreted as a possible form of 'ring-money'.
Wessex culture The rich
Wessex culture developed in southern Great Britain during that time. The weather, previously warm and dry, became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, which forced the population away from easily defended sites in the hills and into the fertile
valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands which appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances.
Deverel-Rimbury culture The
Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge during the second half of the 'Middle Bronze Age' (c. 1400–1100 BC) to exploit the wetter conditions.
Cornwall was a major source of
tin for much of western Europe and
copper was extracted from sites such as the
Great Orme mine in Northern
Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal, but growing complexity and hierarchies became apparent.
Disruption of cultural patterns Late Bronze Age
hillfort There is evidence of a relatively large-scale disruption of cultural patterns (see
Late Bronze Age collapse), which some scholars think may indicate an invasion (or at least a migration) into Southern Great Britain around the 12th century BC. The disruption was felt far beyond Britain, even beyond Europe, as most of the great
Near Eastern empires collapsed (or experienced severe difficulties), and the
Sea Peoples harried the entire
Mediterranean basin around that time.
Cremation was adopted as a burial practice, with
cemeteries of
urns containing cremated individuals appearing in the archaeological record. According to
John T. Koch and others, the Celtic languages developed during the Late Bronze Age period in an intensely-trading-networked culture called the
Atlantic Bronze Age, which included Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal, but that stands in contrast to the more generally-accepted view that the Celtic languages developed earlier than that, with some cultural practices developing in the
Hallstatt culture.
Late Bronze Age migration In 2021, a major
archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain during the 500-year period from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from
Gaul and had higher levels of Early European Farmers ancestry. which made up around half the ancestry of subsequent Iron Age people in that area, but not in northern Britain. The "evidence suggests that, rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between Britain and mainland Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small scale movements of family groups". The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early
Celtic languages into Britain". There was much less migration into Britain during the Iron Age and so it is likely that Celtic had reached Britain before then. The study also found that
lactose tolerance rose swiftly in early Iron Age Britain, a thousand years before it became widespread in mainland Europe, which suggests that
milk became a very important foodstuff in Britain at this time. ==Gallery==