Prehistoric Britain
How life in Britain changed from the Stone Age to the Iron Age: hunter-gatherers becoming the first farmers, stone tools giving way to bronze and then iron, hillforts and trade — all pieced together from archaeology, because nobody wrote anything down
What a learner can do afterwards
- Place the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age in order and describe one big change across them (e.g., from hunting to farming)
- Explain what a site like Skara Brae or Stonehenge tells us about how prehistoric people lived
- Explain why we depend on objects and sites rather than writing to learn about prehistoric Britain
The lesson
Long before Britain had towns or writing, people lived through three great ages, named after what they made their tools from: the Stone Age, then the Bronze Age, then the Iron Age. Each age brought a big change in how people lived.
At Skara Brae, in Orkney, Stone Age people built stone houses with stone beds and shelves, because wood was scarce there. The sand that buried the village also protected it, so archaeologists could see exactly how a family lived. At Stonehenge, huge stones were dragged for miles and lifted upright into a circle. That took years of planning and teamwork, so it tells us prehistoric people could organise big projects together.
Nobody in prehistoric Britain wrote anything down, so there are no diaries or letters to read. Instead, archaeologists dig up bones, tools, pots, and buildings, and work out how people lived from the clues left behind in the ground.
When you see an old object in a museum, ask what it can tell you: what it is made from, how it might have been used, and who might have used it.
Stone Age, then Bronze Age, then Iron Age: each one changed how people in Britain lived, and we know this from things dug from the ground, not from writing.
Watch it
Where it sits
Learn first
This opens up
Nothing builds on it yet.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.