Prehistory is the story of man before written records began. The most impressive prehistoric remains are hill figures, hill forts, and stone circles.

Hill figures: gigantic pictures of people and animals cut into white chalk hillsides.
Hill forts: natural hills, fortified by ditches and banks of earth.
Stone circles: temples consisting of circles of huge stones.

A Magic Circle
The most famous of the prehistoric stone circles is Stonehenge, built between 1800 and 1500 B.C. The biggest stones are seven metres high with a further three metres underground. Some of the stones were brought from South West Wales; imagine how difficult it was to transport these huge blocks of stone in those early days. It is thought that Stonehenge and the other stone circles were built on lines of magnetic power that cross the surface of the earth. Exactly why it was built is not known for certain; it may have been a temple for sun worship or a calendar for showing the movements of the sun and the planets.

During this period various peoples came to settle in Britain, of which the most important were the Celts, who came in the 5th Century B.C. Different forms of their language are still spoken today: Welsh in parts of Wales, and Gaelic in parts of Scotland an Ireland.


(EF Information Sheet)