anonymous
2011-09-23 08:15:03 UTC
Britain was first settled in the Neolithic period by Iberian people who spread slowly from the South. We find out about them from archaeological remains.Grave mounds contain “ beakers” or cups of early pottery. The most famous structure is the megalith of Stonehenge, in South West England.It is built of bluish stone, brought 300 km from Wales. To construct something so enormous shows how important Stonenhe must have been to these people. The Celts: Around 700 B.C the Celts began to arrive from north-west Germany. Today their language remains in “ Welsh” in Wales and “ Gaelic” in Scoltland. Unlike the people of the Mediterranean the Celts were tall and muscular,had fair skin,blue eyes and blond hair. They were farmers, hunters and fishermen and metal workers.They constructed defensive earthworks,built on topo of hils and uses as refuges and tribal centres.They traded iron, tin and silver goods,pottery and cloth betwwn tribes.Their cloaks,skirts and trousers were of dyed striped or checked cloth,fastened a piece of jewellery. The Scottish tartan were warriors who fought from their chariots. One famous leader was a moman Boudicca ( 1 st century A.D), who fought the Romans to avenge her husband’s death and humiliation. Their priests The “ Druis” were the priests of the Celts; they were important not only in religion, but also justice, edication and medicine. They held their ceremonies in the heart of the forest and not in temples. Even today, in England, mistletoe, a plant which grows on oak trees, is considered special and used to decorate houses at Christmas with other evergreen plants. In general, the Celts workshipped the natural elements such as the Sun, the Moon, the trees and the rivers, since Water was regarded as the holy element which generates life as the door to the world after death. They believed in immortality and in the transmigration of the soul from one person to another. It was thought that life after death was stille spent on the Earth in caves, hills or lakes, and this idea contributed to giving nature a magical connotation. One means of communicating with the spiritual world, as in many civilizations, was through sacrifice. The Celts made offerings of precious objects to the gods: the more valuable the offering, the more powerful the act of propitiation. Thus one would expect a human sacrifice to take place only at times of great need or to express great gratitude to the supernatural forces. Most Celtic animal sacrifice was of domestic species. Written evidence about the Celts comes from the Romans, after their invasion in 55 B.C. The British Celts were giving aid to the Celts of Gaul against Rome. That was one reason frot the Roman Conquest of Britain. The other was its agricultural and commercial prosperity.