Geologists are not yet agreed when and by whom Britain was first peopled.
Probably the island was invaded by a succession of races. The first, the
Paleolithic men, may have died out or retired before successors arrived.
During the Neolithic and Bronze Ages we can dimly trace further
immigrations. Real knowledge begins with two Celtic invasions, that of the
Goidels in the later part of the Bronze Age, and that of the Brythons and
Belgae in the Iron Age. These invaders brought Celtic civilization and
dialects. It is uncertain how far they were themselves Celtic in blood and
how far they were numerous enough to absorb or obliterate the races which
they found in Britain. But it is not unreasonable to think that they were
no mere conquering caste, and that they were of the same race as the
Celtic-speaking peoples of the western continent. By the age of Julius
Caesar all the inhabitants of Britain, except perhaps some tribes of the
far north, were Celts in speech and customs. Politically they were divided
into separate and generally warring tribes, each under its own princes.
They dwelt in hill forts with walls of earth or rude stone, or in villages
of round huts sunk into the ground and resembling those found in parts of
northern Gaul, or in subterranean chambered houses, or in hamlets of
pile-dwellings constructed among the marshes. But, at least in the south,
market centres had sprung up, town life was beginning, houses of a better
type were perhaps coming into use, and the southern tribes employed a gold
coinage and also a currency of iron bars or ingots, attested by Caesar and
by surviving examples, which weigh roughly, some two-thirds of a pound,
some 2-2/3 lb, but mostly 1-1/3 lb. In religion, the chief feature was the
priesthood of Druids, who here, as in Gaul, practised magical arts and
barbarous rites of human sacrifice, taught a secret lore, wielded great
influence, but, at least as Druids, took ordinarily no part in politics. In
art, these tribes possessed a native Late Celtic fashion, descended from
far-off Mediterranean antecedents and more directly connected with the
La-Tène culture of the continental Celts. Its characteristics were a
flamboyant and fantastic treatment of plant and animal (though not of
human) forms, a free use of the geometrical device called the "returning
spiral," and much skill in enamelling. Its finest products were in bronze,
but the artistic impulse spread to humbler work in wood and pottery. The
late Celtic age was one which genuinely delighted in beauty of form and
detail. In this it resembled the middle ages rather than the Roman empire
or the present day, and it resembled [v.04 p.0583] them all the more in
that its love of beauty, like theirs, was mixed with a feeling for the
fantastic and the grotesque. The Roman conquest of northern Gaul (57-50
B.C.) brought Britain into definite relation with the Mediterranean. It was
already closely connected with Gaul, and when Roman civilization and its
products invaded Gallia Belgica, they passed on easily to Britain. The
British coinage now begins to bear Roman legends, and after Caesar's two
raids (55, 54 B.C.) the southern tribes were regarded at Rome, though they
do not seem to have regarded themselves, as vassals. Actual conquest was,
however, delayed. Augustus planned it. But both he and his successor
Tiberius realized that the greater need was to consolidate the existing
empire, and absorb the vast additions recently made to it by Pompey, Caesar
and Augustus.