1.Early Settlement（-55BC）

Stonehenge

As far as we can tell，the first immigrants to Britain were Iberians who came from Iberian Peninsular about five thousand years ago.They landed in the region of present Cornwall and Devon.Some of them went further north，but most settled on Salisbury Plain.They left no written records and the only relics that gave evidence of their existence were the stone monuments，the biggest of which was the Stonehenge¹，built by the Iberians about 3，500ago，on Salisbury Plain in the southwest of England.More direct evidence of the social structure of the Iberians is the long barrow.Often over 200feet in length，these barrows were burial places and prove the existence of sharply marked class divisions.Finally，there is some evidence that Iberian culture was mainly unwarlike.Few finds that can be classed as weapons have been unearthed of an earlier date than the first Celtic invasions in about 700BC.

Soon after 700BC the Celts from Upper Rhine Land of northwest Europe came to settle on the Isles.They were tall，with red hair and blue eyes.The first wave of Celtic invaders was the Gaels，whose language is still spoken in Scotland.From about 500BC another group of the Celts called Brythons came and drove the Gaels to the north and west.From the Brythons came the English name for Britain.A third wave，Belgae from Northern Gaul，arrived about 100BC and occupied the greater part of what are now known as the Home Counties².

The Celtic conquerors blended with their Iberian predecessors to varying extents in different parts of the country.While in the west the dominant strain was Iberian，the Celts were able to impose their tribal organization，modified to some extent by the fact of conqnest，throughout the whole of the British Isles.