Talk:Prehistoric Britain

message: This section, in common with much of the article, is hopeless short of references or any kind of evidence base. The DNA analysis can be interpreted in a variety of ways - in particular, low percentages of indiginous Y-chromosome markers would suggest aggressive invasion irrespective of mitochrondrial numbers (i.e. kill the men and rape the women or at least take them as wives. Such work has been done e.g.:
:'Statistically indistinguishable'
:He and his colleagues looked at Y-chromosomes, passed from father to son, of Celtic and Norwegian populations. They found them to be quite different.
:"But we also noticed that there's something quite striking about the Celtic populations, and that is that there's not a lot of genetic variation on the Y-chromosome," he said.
:To try to work out where the Celtic population originally came from, the team from UCL, the University of Oxford and the University of California at Davis also looked at Basques.
:"On the Y-chromosome the Celtic populations turn out to be statistically indistinguishable from the Basques," Professor Goldstein said.
:"In this context, pairwise comparisons (FST values) of the Basque samples with other European populations based on haplogroup frequencies show that Gipuzkoa-1 has its closest affinities with the Irish and Welsh."
European Journal of Human Genetics (2005) 13, 1293–1302
All of which would suggest that invaders seldom penetrated into Wales, Ireland or the Basque country but decimated men throughout the rest of the British Isles. Other data from language and culture support this hypothesis.
Laetoli (talk) 16:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Neolithic 

message: Is there any idea of what types of languages were spoken before the Celts came in? Badagnani 05:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are no written records of the time and spoken language doesn't fossilise. Some people suggest that that Basque might have been used widely throughout pre-Neolithic Europe but this is just conjecture Laetoli (talk) 03:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language 

message: Are we certain that the parameters for 'Prehistoric Britain' should end with the Claudian invasion of Britain in AD 43 and not the Caesarian 'conquests' of 54 BC?--Chopin-Ate-Liszt! (talk) 15:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timeline

message: This is an obsolete concept and needs to be changed to reflect modern archaeological thought. Anyone else up for it? At the moment I may put a template on the article to warn people it isn't accurate.--Doug Weller (talk) 10:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: On thinking about it, what it really needs is cleaning up as it seems to contradict itself. I wish I had access to Antiquity because it, like most of the article, needs a lot of referencing. I've tagged it for that instead of an accuracy template.--Doug Weller (talk) 10:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Beaker People/Culture

message: There's been quite a bit of vandalism on this page. Dcooper, thanks for your help. I noticed that my revision didn't catch all the vandalism, so I reverted to an earlier version. I wasn't reverting you. Applejuicefool (talk) 19:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: This just a request: can anyone add more to the LPRIA?  I'm looking for the degree of sophistication, language and writing before the Romans arrived.  If anyone can help please let me know?  Thanks
LookingGlass (talk) 16:12, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Late pre-Roman Iron Age (LPRIA) 

message: I'm bummed ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 13:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  No piccas? 

message: Hello Recent Past Editors: In this article on Prehistoric Britain, would anyone mind if I put in a header separating the Notes from the References, then make sure all the references now fully cited in the notes are also down in the refererences section? I will wait one week, then go ahead and do that if I do not get negative feedback.Middle Fork (talk) 14:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  May I Separate Notes from References? 

message: "Pytheas says that the Britons were renowned wheat farmers." This is in the Bronze Age section, but he lived in the middle of the Iron Age, 400 years later (or more like a thousand years later, depending which bit of the Bronze Age we're talking about). The Britons were also renowned sheep farmers - in the 11th century - but that doesn't mean they were renowned sheep farmers in the year 0, so what does Pytheas know about the Bronze Age? 213.122.58.200 (talk) 02:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Following the posting of the above note, I read up on Pytheas, came to agree with the above critic, than made the suggested change. It would have been neat if 213.122.58.200 would have jumped in and done it.Middle Fork (talk) 02:03, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pytheas 

message: In the preface, it is claimed that "around 6000 BC ... Britain was cut off from the rest of Europe" - i.e. 8000 years before present: however, in the section on the Mesolithic period, it is claimed that "by around 6500 years ago continental Europe was cut off for the last time". Clearly one of these claims is wrong - can somebody who knows which is the correct date sort it out?  Dom Kaos (talk) 12:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No comments, so I'm going to go ahead and change the page to "8500 years ago" (as per this article) and see if anyone objects  ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 12:32, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Inconsistency regarding date of cutting off of land bridge

message: The sentence, "several studies of the Y-chromosome have shown that a mass migration of 50–100% of English males occurred in the past 2,500 years, most probably during the Anglo-Saxon invasion", is nonsense. As it stands it says that 50 to 100% of *current* English males migrated in that period, which of course is not what the writer means. Please clarify. As the English as a people didn't exist prior to Anglo-Saxon invasion, I think this needs to be rephrased so as to refer to the genentic make-up of living English. As for the '50%-100%' statistic, this needs a reference, or should be deleted. It looks like more nonsense to me.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr McV (talk • contribs) 18:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The nonsense is still there but now with a footnote to an article which does not support the statement. In an earlier section saying 75% descended from hunter gatherers is logically wrong- we are all (100%) descended from hunter gatherers. Nitpyck (talk) 19:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  cruelly!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by HJJHolm (talk • contribs) 15:56, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Nonsense

message: According to the source given i the text this name is related to the name "Picts". It may very well be related with the norse word prýða meaning "beautify" ("prettify" ?) too.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by St.Trond (talk • contribs) 13:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pretani 

message: Those animals were replaced in people's diets by pig and less social animals such as elk, red deer, roe deer, wild boar and aurochs  Is it true that pig are more social than boar? Does elk mean moose in this sentence otherwise elk and red deer are the same?  This is really being picky but that's me and I truly don't know if there is a difference between pig and boar and if pigs are more social than other animals - or- if this is meant to say domestic pigs and wild game. Nitpyck (talk) 05:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point AlwynJPie (talk) 01:53, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Were wild cattle anti-social 

message: This is very unclear to me:
"Recent (2006) scientific evidence[2]  regarding mitochondrial DNA sequences from ancient and modern Europe has shown a distinct pattern for the different time periods sampled in the course of the study. Despite some limitations regarding sample sizes, the results were found to be non-random. As such, the results indicate that, in addition to populations in Europe expanding from southern refugia after the last glacial maximum (especially the Franco-Cantabrian region), evidence also exists for various northern refugia".
LastDodo (talk) 21:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paleolithic 

message: For anyone who likes to lighten the mood, I really have to take issue with this statement: "The remains of a Mesolithic elk found caught in a bog at Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire had been wounded by hunters and escaped on three occasions...."  Is this thrice-undead elk our first recorded instance of zombie-ism? :o)
Perhaps: "The remains ..... show that it had been wounded by  hunters ..." etc. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:43, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but bygone actors and actresses have starred films in fi Wikipedia for years already XD Pitke (talk) 17:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: My laugh-muscles are still aching! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Zombie-Elk? 

message: Where are the sources for the claims that prehistoric britain was inhabited by people from France and Belgium?  What about sources which claim western European origins? Wernergerman (talk) 19:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: To state the obvious, France & Belgium are Western European areas. If you mean people from somewhere else, what are your sources? Johnbod (talk) 19:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The LPRIA section actually states that there was an influx of Belgae from France and Belgium between about 200 BC and 43 AD, which appears to be confusingly attributed to the displacement of Gauls by the Roman invasion of the mid first century BC. So far as I know, archaeologists are sceptical of this idea. For example, David Miles (no relation) said in The Tribes of Britain that there are many archaeological reasons to doubt Caesar's account of  a major incursion of northern Gauls. The whole LPRIA section is unreferenced. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too Few Opinions : LPRIA discussion 

message: Corrected unsourced data about its existance as late as 11-10,000 BP (this fairly thorough study gives 14000 BP as an outlier). If there are newer or better studies (maybe they forgot to adjust for rebound?), peachy, but remember to cite them. Celtic myth doesn't remember walking across, but remembers straits narrow enough to wade / manage easily (w/cite).
We should also make the obligatory point about the snakes here. Anyone have a rel. source for England having 3 native snakes and Ireland (prior to mail order from America) zero? — LlywelynII 17:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I have gone ahead and updated this paragraph, just remember the difference between an ice bridge and land bridge, sometimes people treat them as one and the same! As for the snakes (and reptiles), England (Britain) due to it's land bridge until 6200BC, could very well have "native" reptiles, but it would not have been possible for Ireland to have "native" reptiles as cold blooded animals can not cross glaciers, therefore they would have had to have been accidentally imported by humans. HOWEVER in Ireland they (it appears until recently) have been using a unique definition of the word "native", were if fauna or flora was established on the island by 1500AD then it's defined as "native". So even if a good Source is found, we'll have difficulty with nailing down the unique Irish terminology! Bibby (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's unique actually - someone who knows once explained the British terminology regarding trees, which had a 1500 break point, as well as a Roman period one. I don't think WP covers this very well. Johnbod (talk) 03:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Irish Land-bridge

message: As you say it is very difficult to edit when there is such variety in dates and terminology in the sources. It also does not help that the section you tidied up is unreferenced. However, I am doubtful about the first part. 'Windermere stadial' does not seem to be a generally recognised term. It only has 3 hits in Google scholar compared with 373 for Windermere interstadial. I have generally seen it as Last Glacial Maximum - described in the wiki article on it as 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago (not just the peak c. 20,000 years ago as stated in the Prehistoric Britain article). Another query (also in the text before your edits) is starting the last ice age 70,000 years ago. The Last glacial period is generally dated as starting 110,000 years ago. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:57, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: . Damn, I meant to fix that. I didn't add Windermere stadial, that seems to be the LGM as you suggest. Yep, the dates are a mess. Our archaeology articles are dire. No article on Cheddar point? I was at an interesting day conference run by the East Midlands group of the Council for British Archaeology - lots of discussion about the Creswellian assemblage and some work done near Newark. Phil Harding from Wessex Archaeology (used to be on Time Team) was there. I'm beginning to have some ideas... but they may mean more work. If you want to fix Windermere Stadial (yes, I also checked and found those 3), feel free or I will later. Dougweller (talk) 16:28, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The article on Creswellian culture says that it was succeeded by the Ahrensburg culture. This strikes me as wrong as the Ahrensburg was in the Younger Dryas, and so far as I know there is no evidence that Britain was occupied at that time, but I am reluctant to strike it as it is cited to Darvill's Prehistoric Britain, which I do not have. Was there any discussion at the conference whether there is any continuity between the Creswellian and the later permanent occupation of Britain? Dudley Miles (talk) 17:13, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, there wasn't any discussion that I can recall about continuity. The word 'culture' wasn't used either, it was "tool assemblages" that were discussed. Darvill does not mention the Ahrensburg culture in his book (I have the first edition and of course that's out of date now). The article originally said it was succeeded by the Mesolithic Maglemosian culture until an IP changed it. What was mentioned was that Federmesser tools were found later. See for instance . Dougweller (talk) 19:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I have corrected the Creswellian article to say that it was followed by the Younger Dryas. The date given in the article for the Creswellian of c, 13,000 to 11,500 BP is obviously far too late, but I have not found a source to correct this. It seems to have been c. 14,000 to 12,800, but no source spells it out. Do you have a source for the dates? Dudley Miles (talk) 22:03, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Replied at Talk:Creswellian culture - in fact Paul Pettitt IIRC says around 12,000, but he thinks it was just one group there for a few years. Dougweller (talk) 14:40, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits by Dougweller 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Prehistoric Britain. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070711223337/http://www.myguidebritain.com:80/britain-history/ to http://www.myguidebritain.com/britain-history/#prehistoric
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 06:16, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The sentence "There is a current debate between those who believe that the introduction of farming and a sedentary lifestyle was brought about by resident peoples adopting new practices, and those who hold the opinion that it was effected by continental invaders bringing their culture with them and, to some degree, replacing the indigenous populations." is outdated since years, and it contradicted toher entries. Thus I removed it. HJJHolm (talk) 15:58, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neolithisation 

message: I changed this around a little, because the 'Prehistoric Europe' template is a little too confined. There are, for example, no articles for either Prehistoric England or Prehistoric Northern Ireland.
You will, in fact, notice that there is a redirect for England, for some reason. None for Northern Ireland. The 'pedia is pretty inconsistent with regard to this: no article on the prehistory of the sovereign nation (or the Republic of Ireland for that matter). Both redirect to articles about one geographical region or another.
For some odd reason, the prehistoric England article redirects to Prehistoric Britain. The articles which exist for Wales and Scotland do not. This is entirely inconsistent.
I suspect the template is actually used differently in various articles.
Again, no consistency.
Either there should be individual articles on England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, or there should be one article on the British Isles, or there should be articles with regard to just the UK and the RoI. The prehistory of the whole of the British Isles is significantly similar to, and entwined, warrant merging the prehistories into that article.
Either that, or redesign the template so there is no suggestion of nation states and, instead, regions are listed: the British Isles, Central Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe etc, or on some kind of linguistic or genetic distribution.
What are now considered sovereign/nation states is very different to the tribal sprawl of prehistory. Presumably, much as with modern history, the cultural, genetic and linguistic landscape was fluid from place to place, with borders especially blurred back in prehistory than they are now, after the advent of the nation state.
To some extent, it doesn't make sense to organise articles on prehistory based on modern notions of 'nationality' or nations. However, if it's going to be done that way, then be consistent: create articles on English pre-history, Northern Irish prehistory and Republic of Ireland prehistory, etc.
--98.122.20.56 (talk) 23:30, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Just make wanted changes directly in  so they are automatically shown on all articles instead of trying to replace the template with alternative code in individual articles. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:48, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

text: Or there should be articles on Britain and Ireland, a sensible approach. But you don't allow for the different degrees of nationalist sentiment. Good luck trying to merge PSc into PBr! And of course Scotland was "prehistoric" for several extra centuries, mostly. Johnbod (talk) 13:51, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prehistoric template 

message: "The dominant food species were equines (Equus ferus) and red deer (Cervus elaphus), although other mammals ranging from hares to mammoth were also hunted, including rhino and hyena." By my understanding there were no hares (or rabbits) in Britain until the Romans brought them over millennia later. Anna (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be thinking of the period since the last glaciation. The Paleolithic covers an extremely long period, when all sorts of stuff could be found in Britain at points. Johnbod (talk) 22:18, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Hares in Britain?

message: Should this box be here? Prehistoric Britain is not merely a period in English history. Not so much because there weren't any recognised 'English' here in prehistoric times, lets ignore that, but because this subject clearly has a place in British/Scottish/Welsh etc history.LastDodo (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really - removed. If people want to read about Tudor England they know where to go. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, fast response! When I saw it was gone I almost thought I had imagined it. By the way someone had also added it to the Roman Britain article. Not sure whether it should be there, for the same reason, though its a little less clear as Saxons did start arriving in that period. I'll let you judge.LastDodo (talk) 13:53, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Periods in English History Box

message: This excerpt from Paul Pettit's work seems like a strange contribution to an encyclopedia (Stone Age/Paleolithic section):
:The British Lower Palaeolithic (and equally that of much of northern Europe) is thus a long record of abandonment and colonisation, and a very short record of residency. The sad but inevitable conclusion of this must be that Britain has little role to play in any understanding of long-term human evolution and its cultural history is largely a broken record dependent on external introductions and insular developments that ultimately lead nowhere. Britain, therefore, was an island of the living dead.[5]
It may be poetic but it adds a lot of emotional baggage to the discussion. Why is it "sad" etc.? Is it true that "Britain", which didn't exist until long after the stone age, had little role in "any" etc.? (Really? So why bother reading the article?) The "living dead"? These don't come across as very informative or helpful. Frankly I try to approach this as if I were a high school student trying to do research for a paper and this language would make me either depressed or highly frustrated. My teacher would mark me down for using it. Dynasteria (talk) 17:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: - just in case this isn't on your watchlist - this was part of your 2014 editing of this article. I'm also not convinced we need the quote. Doug Weller talk 19:24, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I included it as the conclusion of the most authoritative book on the subject (with the possible exception of Nick Ashton's Early Humans). I do not find it makes the subject any less fascinating and I do not think that Wikipedia should ignore a conclusion that the intermittent occupations were not ultimately significant. Whether the quote is too "poetic" is a matter of taste but I think the point should be made in some form, particularly as many people do not understand that occupants before the Younger Dryas have no connection with later peoples in Britain. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:45, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

text: I was replying to your comment: "So why bother reading the article?", when I wrote that it does not make the subject less fascinating. Pettit does not broaden to all humanity but say that much of northern European lower Paleolithic occupation was not significant for human evolution. As I wrote above, I think this point should be made in some form. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:26, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

text: That is OK with me so long as it is based on a reliable source. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weird POV? 

message: you have reverted my deletion of the incorrect statement that the recorded history of Britain starts with the Claudian invasion and replaced it with Caesar's invasion. This comment and your note is covered in the last paragraph of the lead - the correct place chronologically - and it does not seem to me necessary to discuss the subject twice. Dudley Miles (talk) 07:08, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but the lead is 6 paras, far too long per WP:LEAD, and that last para, by definition not on the actual subject, should be moved much lower down. Protohistory is what all these authors are, strictly. The over-short 1st para should probably be worked into the rest of the lead. Johnbod (talk) 15:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and that is what I did. I deleted the comment which should not be in the lead paragraph as it was was not on the actual subject (and incorrect) and merged the rest into the second paragraph, but you reverted. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since you agree I have rejigged, & the lead is now 4 paras. But to my mind far too much of it is on the very early period, which should be moved to a pre-Upper Paleolithic section just below; splitting the Paleolithic. At the moment the Mesolithic and Iron Age are not mentioned & the Bronze Age barely so. Johnbod (talk) 16:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits