The History of Britain - Pt 1 The First Humans and How Britain Became an Island
Where do I start when discussing the history of Britain? The obvious answer is ‘at the beginning’, and for me that means when humans first set foot on the land we now refer to as Great Britain – but when was that? Nobody knows for certain of course, but archaeologists believe that footprints discovered at Happisburgh on the Norfolk Coast in 2013 date from around 850,000 to 950,000 years ago making these footprints the earliest evidence of human activity on the island, which in this context, refers to the countries of England, Wales and Scotland including their associated islands (but not Ireland).
Who these people were and where they came from is best left to anthropologists, but the age of these footprints suggests that they may have been left by Homo antecessor, an early human species known to be present in Europe at the time.
It has to be remembered that Britain wasn’t an island back then, but in the middle of a glacial period known as the Pleistocene epoch (approx. 2.6 million – 11,700 years ago). Being a glacial epoch didn’t mean that land was covered in ice all the time but had cycles of glacial and interglacial periods, and during the last million years there were several. For anyone interested, and to put climate change into perspective, the last three glacial periods were the Anglian (475,000-425,000 years ago), Wolstonian (374,000-130,000 years ago), and Devensian (115,000-11,700 years ago). These were separated by two interglacial periods, the Hoxnian (424,000-374,000 years ago) and Ipswichian (129,000-116,000 years ago). The last glacial cycle (Devensian) peaked around 22,000 years ago and retreated around 10,000 BC. Experts believe that we are now in the interglacial Holocene period.
During glacial periods, Britain was joined to the European mainland by a land bridge which we now call Doggerland, but the changing climate meant that humans came and went according to the conditions, and modern humans didn’t colonize Britain permanently until about 14,000 years ago.
As the climate warmed up and ice caps melted, sea levels rose, and Doggerland was gradually flooded until completely covered by the sea. The final separation is thought to have occurred around 6,100 BC when a tsunami was triggered by underwater landslides in Norway – and from this time onwards, Britain became an island.
Anyone wishing to learn more about these events might want to take a look at the videos below.
POSTED – NOVEMBER 2025
I learned most of this at school but of course I’ve forgotten it all by now so it’s been interesting to read this first post. I’m very familiar with Happisburgh, been there several times since 2010 while camping a few miles down the coast (it’s rapidly being eroded by the sea along with a lot more of that Norfolk coastline) but I didn’t know about the footprints.
I’ve never been there and I would imagine that they were covered by the sea most of the time so I doubt if you wpould see them if you were to go back there.
Me too. It is also all about evolving in what you do and how. .
I find the numbers incomprehensible, Malc. Do you get to predicting the date of the next Ice Age? xx
Absolutely Jo. The next time I forget my wife’s anniversary.
You wouldn’t dare! xx
I shouldn’t do Jo. It’s this time next week 😊
I sort of knew most of this apart from those very first footprints – fascinating!
It’s a subject that is continually being updated as our knowledge improves, or changes direction, and as you can see, there’s more to come.
Great post Malc. I am looking forward to more already.
Thanks Shey. It’s a slight departure from my normal travel posts but there’s a host of other stuff I would like to write about apart from travel, so this seemed as good a place to start as anywhere.
It is. So good on you. Variety is he spice of life.
That’s exactly how I’ve always viewed life Shey 🌟