Britain Before English
Appendix · Timeline
The main dates used in the chapters, in order, with the chapter that explains each and the Wikipedia article it came from. Dates are given as the sources give them: "about" and "c." mean the source says approximately, and where sources disagree both are listed. Nothing here is new: if a date is not in a chapter, it is not on this page. The list is selective, not every date in the course.
How to use this page
The story runs in six stretches: the people before farming, farmers and monuments, metal and the Iron Age, Rome, the north, and the centuries after Rome. Prehistoric dates carry wide ranges, and even dates in the Roman centuries differ between articles, so read the Event column as "according to this source". The Map page shows where the places are.
Watch out
"BC" years count down towards AD 1, so 4100 BC is earlier than 2500 BC. For the oldest rows I give "years ago" as the sources do, not converted to BC.
The first people (to about 4300 BC)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| about 866,000 to 814,000, or 970,000 to 936,000 years ago | Flint tools at Happisburgh, one of the earliest signs of humans in northern Europe (two alternative ranges) | 1 | Happisburgh |
| about 180,000 to 60,000 years ago | Britain unoccupied, according to the article's introduction | 1 | Prehistoric Britain |
| by about 41,000 to 44,000 years ago | Modern humans at Kents Cavern | 1 | Prehistoric Britain |
| about 34,000 years ago | The Red Lady of Paviland | 1 | Prehistoric Britain |
| about 28,000 years ago; about 15,000 years ago | Humans probably leave during the Last Glacial Maximum; return | 1 | Prehistoric Britain |
| about 9,700 to 4,300 BC | The Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), as dated in the article | 1 | Prehistoric Britain |
| about 8300 BC | Cheddar Man lived | 1 | Cheddar Man |
| about 6500 BC; about 6200 BC | Rising seas cut Britain off (disputed); a tsunami in the Doggerland area. Another page gives "largely complete by 5000 BC" | 1 | Doggerland; Prehistoric Britain |
Farmers and monuments (about 4100 to 2500 BC)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| about 4100 to 2500 BC | The Neolithic; farming comes from the continent | 2 | Neolithic Britain |
| about 3800 to 3000 BC | Earthen long barrows likely built | 2 | Long barrow |
| about 3180 to 2500 BC | Skara Brae occupied | 2 | Skara Brae |
| about 3100 BC (remains now suggest about 3000 BC) | First phase of Stonehenge | 2 | Stonehenge |
| about 2600 to 2400 BC | Sarsen circle at Stonehenge | 2 | Stonehenge |
Beakers, bronze and iron (about 2500 BC to AD 43)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| about 2500 BC | Beaker-associated migrations; one cited claim is that they replaced over 90% of the Neolithic gene pool | 3 | Bell Beaker culture |
| about 2450 to 1800 BC | The Beaker period in Britain | 3 | Bell Beaker culture |
| about 2340 to 2300 BC | The Amesbury Archer | 3 | Amesbury Archer |
| about 2500 to 2200 BC to about 800 BC | The Bronze Age (some sources start as late as 2000 BC) | 3 | Bronze Age Britain |
| 1300 to 800 BC | A further migration reported by a 2021 study | 3 | Bronze Age Britain |
| about 800 BC to AD 43 | The Iron Age (the infobox gives about 800 BC to AD 100) | 4 | British Iron Age |
| about 550 to 400 BC | Hillforts become common | 4 | British Iron Age |
| about 517 BC | The Greek Keltoi first recorded, for a people near Marseille | 5 | Celts |
| about 325 BC | Pytheas's description | 4 | British Iron Age |
| about 300 to 100 BC | The Broch of Mousa | 4 | British Iron Age |
| 55 BC; 54 BC | Caesar's two invasions | 4 | Caesar's invasions of Britain |
Rome (AD 43 to 410)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| AD 43 | Invasion under Plautius | 6 | Roman conquest of Britain |
| c. AD 50 | Caratacus defeated | 6 | Roman conquest of Britain |
| AD 60 or 61 | Anglesey attacked; Boudica's revolt | 6 | Roman conquest of Britain; Boudica |
| AD 78 to 84 | Agricola's campaigns; Mons Graupius in 83 or 84 | 6 | Roman conquest of Britain |
| c. AD 95 to 105 | Most of the Vindolanda tablets written | 7 | Vindolanda tablets |
| AD 122 | Hadrian's Wall begun | 6 | Hadrian's Wall |
| AD 142 | Antonine Wall begun | 6 | Antonine Wall |
| AD 162 / 164 | Antonine Wall abandoned (the article's later date); the garrison returns to Hadrian's Wall in 164 | 6 | Antonine Wall |
| about AD 180 | Most of the known road network complete | 7 | Roman roads in Britain |
| c. AD 197 | Severan reforms split Britain into two provinces | 7 | Roman Britain |
| by about AD 200 | Christianity reaches Britain, according to Tertullian and Origen | 7 | Christianity in Roman Britain |
| AD 208 to 211 | Septimius Severus campaigns; dies at York in 211 | 6, 8 | Roman conquest of Britain; Caledonians |
| by AD 312 | Division into four provinces | 7 | Roman Britain |
| AD 314 | Three British bishops at the Council of Arles | 7 | Christianity in Roman Britain |
| after 402; by about 430 | Copper coins very rare; coinage likely abandoned as a medium of exchange | 7 | Roman Britain |
The north (to about 850)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| 197; 209 to 210 | Caledonian attacks recorded by Cassius Dio | 8 | Caledonians |
| 297 / 305 | First use of "Pict": 297 in the Picts article, 305 in the Caledonians article. Both shown, not resolved | 8 | Picts; Caledonians |
| 498 to 850 | Dál Riata, as dated in its infobox | 8 | Dál Riata |
| 685 | Dun Nechtain: the Anglians of Northumbria defeated, halting their northward expansion | 8 | Picts |
After Rome (407 to the 12th century)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| 407 | Constantine III takes the remaining mobile troops to Gaul | 9 | End of Roman rule in Britain |
| 409 or 410 | Britons expel Constantine's magistrates | 9 | End of Roman rule in Britain |
| c. 410 | The rescript of Honorius (possibly about southern Italy) | 9 | End of Roman rule in Britain |
| 411 | Constantine III assassinated | 9 | End of Roman rule in Britain |
| 407 to 577; traditionally 410 to 597 | The sub-Roman period | 9 | Sub-Roman Britain |
| about 300 to 500 | Migration from south-west Britain to Brittany (may have begun as early as 300) | 9 | Sub-Roman Britain |
| c. 450/500 to c. 570; about 479 to 484, or the 540s | Gildas's life; estimated dates for De Excidio | 9 | Gildas |
| about 490 / 516 to 518 / late 5th to early 6th century | Three dates for the battle of Badon, from three articles. Shown, not resolved | 9 | Sub-Roman Britain; Annales Cambriae as quoted in King Arthur |
| 537 to 539 | Camlann, per the Annales Cambriae | 9 | King Arthur |
| 9th century | Historia Brittonum: first datable mention of Arthur | 9 | King Arthur |
| about 1138 | Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of Arthur | 9 | King Arthur |
Names and languages (550 to today)
| Date | Event | Ch. | Source |
|---|
| about 550 to 800 | "Primitive Welsh" (Kenneth Jackson's label) | 10 | Welsh language |
| 9th century | Old Welsh begins (the article gives ranges to the 11th or 12th century) | 10 | Welsh language |
| by the 11th century | Brittonic likely gone everywhere except Cornwall, Wales and nearby English counties | 10 | Brittonic languages |
| 1549 | Act of Uniformity imposes English worship (linked to Cornish decline) | 10 | Cornish language |
| 1588 | William Morgan's Welsh Bible | 10 | Welsh language |
| 1707 | Edward Lhuyd first uses "Celtic" for the language group | 5 | Celts; Celtic languages |
| 1904 | Henry Jenner's handbook, often taken as the start of the Cornish revival | 10 | Cornish language |
| 1977 | Diwan immersion schools founded in Brittany | 10 | Breton language |
| 2010 | UNESCO reclassifies Cornish from "extinct" to critically endangered | 10 | Cornish language |
| 2011 | Welsh Language (Wales) Measure confirms official status | 10 | Welsh language |
Note on sources
Every row was taken from the chapters of this course, which give the portion of each article read. I did not look up any date again for this page, and I left out minor dates for space. Article names in the Source column are the ones the chapters name; for the Chapter 1 to 3 rows I matched each date to its article from the chapters' own source lists and did not re-check which article carried which figure. The grouping into periods and the "Watch out" remark are mine.