Early History
Once believed obscure, the placename Kettering is now taken to mean 'the place (or territory) of Ketter's people (or kinsfolk)'. Spelt variously Cytringan, Kyteringas and Keteiringan in the 10th century, although the origin of the name appears to have baffled place-name scholars in the 1930s, words and place-names ending with 'ing' usually derive from the Anglo-Saxon or Old English word inga or ingas meaning 'the people of the' or 'tribe'.
Before the Romans the Kettering area, like much of Northamptonshire’s prehistoric countryside, appears to have remained somewhat intractable with regards to early human occupation, resulting in an apparently sparse population and relatively few finds from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. About 500 BC the Iron Age was introduced into the area by a continental people in the form of the Hallstatt culture, and over the next century a series of hillforts was constructed, the closest to Kettering being at nearby Irthlingborough.
Read more about this topic: St Peter's School, Kettering
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:
“We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)