Located at the fringes of Europe, Britain received European technological and cultural developments much later than Southern Europe and the Mediterranean region did during prehistory. By around 4000 BC, the island was populated by people with a Neolithic culture. This neolithic population had significant ancestry from the earliest farming communities in Anatolia, indicating that a major migration accompanied farming. The beginning of the Bronze Age and the Bell Beaker culture was marked by an even greater population turnover, this time displacing more than 90% of Britain's neolithic ancestry in the process. This is documented by recent ancient DNA studies which demonstrate that the immigrants had large amounts of Bronze-Age Eurasian Steppe ancestry, associated with the spread of Indo-European languages and the Yamnaya culture. [6] Both areas were different to each other and were important centres of population and economy in the period c. 400 and 100 BC. A particular type of pottery made at Poole Harbour was traded through out the territory of the Durotriges. Scottish Archaeological Research Framework ( ScARF), Highland Framework, Early Medieval (accessed May 2022). Wales and Brittany remained independent for a considerable time, however, with Brittany united with France in 1532, and Wales united with England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 in the mid 16th century during the rule of the Tudors (Y Tuduriaid), who were themselves of Welsh heritage on the male side.

The Britons also retained control of Wales and Kernow (encompassing Cornwall, parts of Devon including Dartmoor, and the Isles of Scilly) until the mid 11th century AD when Cornwall was effectively annexed by the English, with the Isles of Scilly following a few years later, although at times Cornish lords appear to have retained sporadic control into the early part of the 12th century AD.

5. Britannia Insula by George Lily – 1548

Lemercier, O. (2012). "Interpreting the Beaker phenomenon in Mediterranean France: an Iron Age analogy". Antiquity. 86 (331): 131–43. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00062505. S2CID 19294850. Recent light detection and ranging (LiDAR) surveys of Wallingford Estate, a sprawling preserve in Northumberland maintained by the National Trust, show historic farming systems, gardens and Iron Age settlements, as well as former areas of woodland. The scans were taken ahead of the replanting of 75,000 native trees at Wallingford.

The Brythonic languages in these areas were eventually replaced by the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons, and Scottish Gaelic, although this was likely a gradual process in many areas.The traveller Pytheas, whose own works are lost, was quoted by later classical authors as calling the people "Pretanoi", which is cognate with "Britanni" and is apparently Celtic in origin. The term "Celtic" continues to be used by linguists to describe the family that includes many of the ancient languages of Western Europe and modern British languages such as Welsh without controversy. [52] The dispute essentially revolves around how the word "Celtic" is defined; it is clear from the archaeological and historical record that Iron Age Britain did have much in common with Iron Age Gaul, but there were also many differences. Many leading academics, such as Barry Cunliffe, still use the term to refer to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain for want of a better label. West Sussex was an area with very strong links to France before the Roman Conquest and was one of the first areas to use coins and adopt north French styles of cremating the dead. The Beaker people were also skilled at making ornaments from gold, silver and copper, and examples of these have been found in graves of the wealthy Wessex culture of central southern Britain. Iron Age Britons lived in organised tribal groups, ruled by a chieftain. As people became more numerous, wars broke out between opposing tribes. This was traditionally interpreted as the reason for the building of hill forts, although the siting of some earthworks on the sides of hills undermined their defensive value, hence "hill forts" may represent increasing communal areas or even 'elite areas'. However some hillside constructions may simply have been cow enclosures. Although the first had been built about 1500 BC, hillfort building peaked during the later Iron Age. There are around 3,300 structures that can be classed as hillforts or similar "defended enclosures" within Britain. [53] By about 350 BC many hillforts went out of use and the remaining ones were reinforced. Pytheas was quoted as writing that the Britons were renowned wheat farmers. Large farmsteads produced food in industrial quantities and Roman sources note that Britain exported hunting dogs, animal skins and slaves.

It seems likely that Ptolemy has made an error here since the resulting shape of the territory of the Belgae would bear little resemblance to pre-Roman tribal geography and would be something of an administrative nightmare. If the civitas was actually focussed around Winchester (called by the Romans Venta Belgarum - 'town of the Belgae') there is still a problem, since this area seems to have been part of the old kingdom of the Atrebates. Before about 50 to 1 BC, archaeological evidence suggests two different groups or tribes lived in this region. One lived in what is today Lincolnshire, the other in what is today Northamptonshire. There are also at least three very large hillforts in their territory (Yeavering Bell, Eildon Seat and Traprain Law), each was located on the top of a prominent hill or mountain.

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Young, Simon (2002). Britonia: camiños novos. Noia: Toxosoutos. pp. 123–128. ISBN 978-84-95622-58-7.