Hi, are you taking the Life in the UK Test?
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OK, so in this video we're going to cover early Britain,
which is the first part of chapter four
of the official government guide.
I'm going to deal with points people struggle with,
so stick around to the end of this video.
I'm also gonna cover some example questions
from the Life in the UK Tests on this topic,
including some of the more tricky ones.
Before we get to the example questions,
let's go over together the various sections
of the official guide on this subject.
This sets out what the UK government
expects you to know for the test.
The guide on early Britain at chapter four says
the first people to live in Britain
were hunter-gatherers in what we call the Stone Age.
For much of the Stone Age, Britain was connected
to the continent by a land bridge.
People came and went, following the herds
of deer and horses which they hunted.
Britain only became permanently separated from the continent
by the channel about 10,000 years ago.
The first farmers arrived in Britain around 6,000 years ago.
The ancestors of these first farmers
probably came from southeast Europe.
These people built houses, tombs, and monuments on the land.
One of these monuments, Stonehenge, still stands
in what is now the English county of Wiltshire.
Stonehenge was probably a special
gathering place for seasonal ceremonies.
Other Stone Age sites have also survived.
Skara Brae, on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland,
is the best-preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe
and has helped archeologists to understand more
about how people lived near the end of the Stone Age.
Around 4,000 years ago, people learned to make bronze.
We call this period the Bronze Age.
People lived in roundhouses and buried
their dead in tombs called round barrows.
The people of the Bronze Age were accomplished metal workers
who made many beautiful objects in bronze and gold,
including tools, ornaments, and weapons.
The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age,
when people learned how to make
weapons and tools out of iron.
People still lived in roundhouses
grouped together into larger settlement
and sometimes defended sites called hillforts.
A very impressive hillfort can still be seen today
at Maiden Castle in the English county of Dorset.
Most people were farmers, craftworkers, or warriors.
The language they spoke was part
of the Celtic language family.
Similar languages were spoken across Europe in the Iron Age,
and related languages are still spoken today
in some parts of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
The people of the Iron Age had
sophisticated culture and economy.
They made the first coins to be minted in Britain,
some inscribed with names of Iron Age kings.
This marks the beginning of British history.
The next section is the Romans.
Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC.
This was unsuccessful, and for nearly 100 years,
Britain remained separate from the Roman Empire.
In AD 43, the emperor Claudius
led the Roman army in a new invasion.
This time, there was resistance
from some of the Britain tribes,
but the Romans were successful
in occupying almost all of Britain.
One of the tribal leaders who fought against the Romans
was Boudica, the Queen of the Iceni,
in what is now eastern England.
She is still remembered today,
and there is a statue of her on Westminster Bridge
in London, near the Houses of Parliament.
Areas of what is now Scotland were never conquered
by the Romans, and the Emperor Hadrian built a wall
in the north of England to keep out the Picts,
ancestors of the Scottish people.
Included in the wall, were a number of forts.
Parts of Hadrian's Wall, including the forts
of Housesteads and Vindolanda can still be seen.
It is a popular area for walkers and is a UNESCO,
United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, World Heritage Site.
The Romans remained in Britain for 400 years.
They built roads and public buildings, created a structure
of law, and introduced new plants and animals.
It was during the third and fourth
centuries AD that the first Christian
communities began to appear in Britain.
The Anglo-Saxons.
The Roman army left Britain in AD 410
to defend other parts of the Roman Empire
and never returned.
Britain was again invaded by tribes from northern Europe,
the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons.
The languages they spoke
are the basis of modern-day English.
Battles were fought against these
invaders, but, by about AD 600,
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were established in Britain.
These kingdoms were mainly in what is now England.
The burial place of one of the kings
was at Sutton Hoo, in modern Suffolk.
This king was buried with treasure and armor,
all placed in a ship which was
then covered by a mound of earth.
Parts of the west of Britain, including much
of what is now Wales and Scotland,
remained free of Anglo-Saxon rule.
The Anglo-Saxons were not Christians
when they first came to Britain,
but, during this period, missionaries came
to Britain to preach about Christianity.
Missionaries from Ireland spread the religion to the north.
The most famous of these were Saint Patrick,
who had become the patron saint of Ireland,
and Saint Columba, who founded a monastery on the island
of Iona, off the coast of what is now Scotland.
Saint Augustine led missionaries from Rome
who spread Christianity in the south.
Saint Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
The next section is the Vikings.
The Vikings came from Denmark and Norway.
They first visited Britain in AD 789
to raid coastal towns and take away goods and slaves.
Then, they began to stay and form their own communities
in the east of England and Scotland.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England united under
King Alfred the Great, who defeated the Vikings.
Many of the Viking invaders stayed in Britain,
especially in the east and north of England,
in an area known as the Danelaw.
Many places there, such as Grimsby and Scunthorpe
came from the Viking languages.
The Viking settlers mixed with local communities,
and some converted to Christianity.
Anglo-Saxon kings continued to rule what is now England,
except for a short period when there were Danish kings.
The first of these was Cnut.
In the north, the threat of attack by Vikings
had encouraged the people to unite
under one king, Kenneth MacAlpin.
The term Scotland began to be used to describe that country.
The Norman conquest.
In 1066, an invasion led by William, the Duke of Normandy,
in what is now northern France, defeated Harold,
the Saxon King of England at the Battle of Hastings.
Harold was killed in battle, William became King of England,
and is known as William the Conqueror.
The battle is commemorated in a great piece
of embroidery known as the Bayeux Tapestry,
which can be seen in France today.
The Norman conquest was the last successful
foreign invasion of England and led to many changes
in government and social structures in England.
Norman French, the language of the new
ruling class, influenced the development
of the English language as we know it today.
Initially, the Normans also conquered Wales,
but the Welsh gradually won territory back.
The Scots and the Normans fought
on the border between England and Scotland.
The Normans took over some land
on the border but did not invade Scotland.
William sent people all over England
to draw up lists of the towns and villages.
The people who lived there who owned the land
and what animals they owned were also listed.
This is called the Domesday Book.
It still exists today and gives a picture
of society in England just after the Norman conquest.
OK, so the points that people tend to struggle with
in the questions in the Life in the UK Test on this subject
are really just the four areas that you got to understand.
The first is the history of the UK before the Romans,
then the impact of the Romans on British society,
and then the different groups that invaded after the Romans,
and then the importance of the Norman invasion in 1066.
So, let's cover the sample questions on this topic.
What was the date of the last successful
foreign invasion of Britain?
1939,
1066,
1610,
or 410?
The answer is 1066.
What were two occupations of the Iron Age people?
Farmers, craftworkers, hunter-gatherers,
welders?
The answer is farmers and craftworkers.
For how long did the Romans remain in Britain?
100 years, 300 years,
400 years,
1,500 years?
The answer is 400 years.
OK, in the next video in this series,
we'll be covering the next part
of the Life in the UK Test, which is on the Middle Ages,
together with some more sample questions.
Thanks for watching.
If you'd like to check out the rest of the lessons
in this series, in total it contains all the knowledge
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