The End of Iron Age Britain
Historically speaking, the Iron Age in Southern Great Britain ended with the Roman invasion. Clearly the native societies were not instantaneously changed into toga-wearing, Latin-speaking provincials, though some relatively quick change is evident archaeologically. For example, the Romano-Celtic shrine in Hayling Island, Hampshire was constructed in the AD 60's–70's, whilst Agricola was still campaigning in Northern Britain (mostly in what is now Scotland), and on top of an Iron Age ritual site. Rectilinear stone structures, indicative of a change in housing to the Roman style are visible from the mid to late 1st century AD at Brixworth and Quinton.
In areas where Roman rule was not strong or was non-existent, Iron Age beliefs and practices remained, but not without at least marginal levels of Roman, or Romano-British influence. The survival of place names, such as Camulodunum (Colchester), and which derive from the native language, is evidence of this.
Read more about this topic: British Iron Age
Famous quotes containing the words the end of, iron, age and/or britain:
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–91)
“When Britain first, at Heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)