Do you want to know the History of Great Britain? Let us start with the pre-Celtic Period
Hundreds of years, a thousand of years and even farther back there were people living in the land which is now called Britain. What happened to them we can only fancy. The historians and archeologists try to piece together the story of those days by looking carefully at the relics that have come down to us from them through more than two thousand centuries.
Stonehenge is a monument to the pre — celtic civilization. Rude and majestic, this monument stands on Salisbury Plain. According to the data from the English Heritage its constuction started in about 3000 B.C. and consisted of several phases (see pictures below).
Now we can see the semi-circular ruin. It is all that was left from that circular gigantic structure. Have you ever thought that some ancient architects just played cards? They put huge stones on perpendicular props so that the whole structure looks like houses built of playing cards. The horisontal slabs seem be soaring — whence the name of the structure, the “Hanging Stones” that is “Stonehenge”.
From this article you will know about the times when the British Isles were covered with forests and the greater part of them was very misty and cold. The stormy sea roared round them, and few travellers dared to swim asross the sea to explore the far away land.
It was a beautiful and desperate spring of the year 449 when long narrow boats of newcomers came swiftly to the shores of Kent or nearby and landed there. The resistance was useless as the tall strong men with flowing hair and bronzed faces, glittering swords and shields leaped ashore one after another. They came from the meadows by the marshes, from the dark woods and the flat and sandy shores of the North Sea, which were overcrowded and couldn’t give enough food for the people, living there. So, the newcomers became masters of the land which we know now as England but at those time it hadn’t had any name yet.