1500–600 BC

Uninterrupted development of Bronze Age culture. Cross-channel traffic without large-scale invasion, though settlements of iron-weaponed visitors dating from about 800 BC are found in the South. Invasion of North Britain by the Picts. Small segmented blue faience beads manufactured in Egypt between 1380 and 1350 BC were imported into Wiltshire in large quantities. The language spoken in Britain except by the Picts and Old Stone Age Aboriginals is thought to have been ‘proto-Celtic’.