Stone Age

The time from Britain's first inhabitation until the last glacial maximum is known as the Old Stone Age, or Palaeolithic. Archaeological evidence indicates that what was to become England was colonised by humans long before the rest of the British Isles because of its more hospitable climate between and during the various glacial periods of the distant past. This earliest evidence, from Boxgrove in Sussex, points to dates of 800,000 BP. These earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, who made their living from hunting game and gathering edible plants. Low sea-levels meant that Britain was still attached to the continent for much of this earliest period of history, and varying temperatures over tens of thousands of years meant that it was not always inhabited at all.The last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BP, and England has been inhabited ever since. This marks the beginning of Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic. Rising sea-levels cut Britain off from the continent for the last time around 6500 BCE. The population by this period were exclusively of our own species of the genus homo, homo sapiens sapiens, and the evidence would suggest that their societies were increasingly complex and they were manipulating their environment and their prey in new ways, possibly selective burning of the then omnipresent woodland to create clearings where the herds would gather to make them easier to hunt. Simple projectile weapons would have been the main tools of the hunt, such as the javelin and possibly the sling. The bow and arrow was also known in Western Europe from at least 9000 BCE. The climate continued to improve and it is likely the population was on the rise.

The New Stone Age, or Neolithic, begins with the introduction of farming, ultimately from the Middle East, around 4000 BCE. It is not known whether this was caused by a substantial folk movement or native adoption of foreign practices, nor are these two models mutually exclusive. People began to cultivate crops and rear animals, and overall lead a more settled lifestyle. Monumental collective tombs were built to house the dead in the form of chambered cairns and long barrows, and towards the end of the period other kinds of monumental stone alignments begin to appear, such as Stonehenge, their cosmic alignments betraying a preoccupation with the sky and planets. Flint technology also developed, producing a number of highly artistic pieces as well as purely pragmatic. More extensive woodland clearance took place to make way for fields and pastures. The Sweet Track in the Somerset Levels is the oldest timber trackway discovered in Northern Europe and among the oldest roads in the world, dated by dendrochronology to the winter of 3807-3806 BCE; it too is thought to have been a primarily religious structure.