How hard would it be to survive in prehistoric Britain

There are many times throughout history when staying alive would have been a challenge, but nothing seems to come close to the daily horror of what would have awaited anyone trying to settle the mysterious lands now known as the British Isles.

Before modern-day humans arrived, the British Isles were occupied by groups of Neanderthals who lived in small communities across the southern half of England, but evidence shows they were chased out by glacial expansions and re-settled on six main occasions. Scotland and the northern half of England are covered in mountains because of the enormous glaciers that formed them, tearing up entire mountain ranges and building new ones over thousands of years.

With the north half of England being similar in climate to modern-day Siberia, it still would have been possible for people to survive here, especially with the huge animals that offered so much meat from a single kill. The problem was finding enough warmth and the ability to actually kill large animals in the first place, something that the Neanderthals weren’t especially good at. Wherever they were found, Neanderthals never seemed to explore far from their chosen homes, always staying close to a particular mountain range or forest. Perhaps this was the reason they weren’t able to adapt and died out, or perhaps it was the arrival of modern-day humans who left their birthplace of north-east Africa and ventured out into the world around 60,000 years ago.

When modern man arrived in Britain, they would have been very much in the Stone Age and used flint tools that were the same as the Neanderthals there before them. This makes it impossible to determine an exact date for their arrival because their technology was the same right up until the end of the ice age around 12,000 BCE.

(A selection of ancient stone tools and weapons recovered from various dig sites. Items like this would be used for everything from building a home to killing a cave bear)

Life before this would have been a non-stop struggle to avoid the things that killed so many people, such as infected wounds and broken bones. With no way to treat them, the smallest cut could become a death sentence, and people’s understanding of medicine at the time was just plain scary. Take trepanation for example, presumably used to treat headaches, which involved drilling a hole through someone’s skull to relieve pressure. The earliest evidence of this comes from 6,000 BCE during the Mesolithic period, where skulls were found in modern-day Portugal and North Africa.

(An example of trepanation done multiple times on the same person. Surprisingly, the procedure was survivable as we can see from partial healing around some of the holes)

Daily life in Prehistoric Britain

There would be little time for fun and games, and there wouldn’t be much to do in that area anyway. A person’s day would involve a lot of work, as decent stone tools would take hours to make but could easily shatter on impact. Hunting would be the main focus of any tribe, as the animals that existed during Ice Age Britain weren’t exactly easy prey, like the woolly mammoth, which seems to be the poster animal of this time. This six-ton beast could stand up to 10 feet tall and would presumably charge in defense as modern-day elephants do. Stopping something that weighs more than a truck with nothing but a spear or arrow made of rock must have been quite a challenge.

(The amount of meat an animal like this would offer could feed the entire village for a few weeks, but the danger of getting it would equal the prize)

Fishing and coastal foraging would also be very important activities, which is why the oldest sites of human settlements in the British Isles are mostly around the coast. Gathering and foraging food could be done anywhere, as thick forests would blanket most of the country and people wouldn’t have to go far to find a meal, especially when there is so much land for such a small population.

What were pre-historic homes like

The one thing we know for certain is that people didn’t start building with stone until well after the ice age ended. Before this, people would have lived in stick huts covered with animal skins or possibly thatching, but the problem is that these both break down quickly and don’t leave any evidence. Many groups would also have been partially nomadic when they needed to be, and would often move many miles to an area with more favorable hunting or fishing grounds.

(Images like this are more common when people think of prehistoric Britain, but homes like this didn’t become common until well into the Bronze Age)

The earliest example of a building with stone in the British Isles is called the Knap of Howar which is located in Orkney, Scotland. It is possibly the oldest preserved stone house in Northern Europe and excavations from the site indicate it was used as a farmstead, with construction happening around 3700 BCE. Since the last glacial period ended between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, depending on where you were in the British Isles, Scotland would have been free from ice but would still suffer from bad weather, which is perhaps the reason the people here decided to build something a little more permanent than an animal skin hut.

What did pre-historic Britain’s eat

One of the biggest influences on the food available was the Romans, who brought with them dozens of types of food, including rabbits, onions, leeks, cherries, cucumbers, and a whole range of other things. Before this food would have been very limited and before the Bronze Age, which started around 3,500 BCE, the vast majority of food would have come from hunting and gathering. Crops that have been found in the British Isles that come from the Stone Age include wheat, barley, peas, lentils, and bitter vetch (a type of bean that’s harmful to eat raw). But none of these would have been farmed on any large scale until well into the Bronze Age.

Most vegetables and fruit would have been gathered from the wild but would be very much seasonal, as there was no way to effectively preserve it and no sugar to create jam for the winter. As for the colder months, food would consist almost entirely of meat, fish, and grain. Everything else wouldn’t be able to last for more than a few weeks before going bad unless they had discovered things like dried meats and fish, or some kind of potted meat, but as with the houses, there wouldn’t be any evidence left to study.

When did life like this end?

Bronze was discovered sometime around 3500 BCE and the technology quickly swept across the country. This new metal made everything easier and by this time the population of the country would be much higher, leading people to start conflicts and mass-producing grain to sell. Life from this point on would still be incredibly hard, but the days of the hunter-gatherer started to end during the Bronze Age, and when someone found out how to smelt iron in 800 BCE, everything would change again. This new metal was strong enough to make plows and allowed people to mass produce grain that could be dried and would last all winter, making it more reliable than hoping there was enough wild food for the entire village each year.