From the Mesolithic hunters of post-glacial Britain and the megaliths of Salisbury Plain through the Celtic hillforts of the Iron Age to the Claudian conquest, Hadrian's Wall, and the rescript of Honorius that ended Roman rule. Slide across the millennia to read the major events that shaped the island before the English.
As the last glaciers retreat, Mesolithic bands recolonise Britain across the land-bridge of Doggerland, hunting red deer and aurochs through birch and pine forests.
From the Mesolithic hunters of post-glacial Britain and the megaliths of Salisbury Plain through the Celtic hillforts of the Iron Age to the Claudian conquest, Hadrian's Wall, and the rescript of Honorius that ended Roman rule. Slide across the millennia to read the major events that shaped the island before the English.
As the last glaciers retreat, Mesolithic bands recolonise Britain across the land-bridge of Doggerland, hunting red deer and aurochs through birch and pine forests.
Continental farmers cross the new Channel bringing wheat, barley, cattle, and sheep. Within a few generations the woodland is cleared, long barrows are raised, and the first causewayed enclosures appear.
On Salisbury Plain the first earthwork and timber phase of Stonehenge is laid out — a circular ditch and bank enclosing cremation burials, aligned to the solstices.
A new population from the Lower Rhine arrives with copper metallurgy, distinctive bell-shaped pottery, and a warrior burial rite. Genetic studies show they replaced as much as 90 per cent of the Neolithic gene pool within a few centuries.
Iron-working spreads from the continent and the British landscape fills with hillforts — Maiden Castle, Danebury, Old Oswestry — defended hilltop centres ruled by chieftains of the tribes Caesar would later name.
In late summer Julius Caesar crosses the Channel with two legions, the first Roman commander to set foot on the island. The reconnaissance ends in storm damage and an inglorious withdrawal.
Four legions under Aulus Plautius land in Kent at the order of the emperor Claudius. After defeating Caratacus and the Catuvellauni on the Medway, the army takes Camulodunum (Colchester); Claudius himself arrives with elephants for the triumph.
Provoked by the seizure of Iceni lands and the flogging of their queen Boudicca, the eastern tribes rise in revolt. Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium are burned and tens of thousands of Romans and Britons killed before Suetonius Paulinus crushes the rebels in the Midlands.
Gnaeus Julius Agricola defeats the Caledonian confederacy under Calgacus somewhere in the Scottish highlands. Tacitus, Agricola's son-in-law, gives Calgacus the famous lament 'they make a desert and call it peace'.
On a visit to Britain the emperor Hadrian orders the construction of a stone and turf wall from the Tyne to the Solway, 117 km long, marking the northern limit of the empire and dividing 'the Romans from the barbarians'.
The African-born emperor Septimius Severus arrives in York with his sons Caracalla and Geta and an army of 50,000 to crush the Maeatae and Caledonii. Three brutal years of campaigning in modern Scotland end inconclusively when Severus dies at York in 211.
The naval commander Carausius, accused of keeping booty from Saxon pirates, revolts and proclaims a separate empire in Britain and northern Gaul. For ten years he rules from London, minting fine silver and proclaiming Restitutor Britanniae.
When Constantius Chlorus dies at York while campaigning against the Picts, the legions there acclaim his son Constantine emperor — the beginning of a reign that will found Constantinople and Christianise the empire.
Picts from the north, Scotti from Ireland, and Saxons from the sea attack the British provinces in coordination. The frontier collapses, Hadrian's Wall is overrun, and discipline disintegrates until Theodosius the Elder restores order in 369.
The British army proclaims its commander Magnus Maximus emperor and follows him across the Channel to seize Gaul and Spain. Welsh tradition will remember him as Macsen Wledig, founding father of the post-Roman royal lines.
Pressed by Saxon raids and abandoned by Constantine III's expedition, the cities of Britain appeal to the emperor Honorius. He replies, according to Zosimus, that they must 'look to their own defences'. Roman Britain has ended.