Britain Begins

This book is beautifully illustrated and packed full of wonderful little maps, color photographs, and is encyclopedic in its summaries of British prehistory.Unfortunately, the Chapter entitled "Talking to Each Other" presents an unaccepted hypothesis of the in-situ development of Celtic languages from an early date in the Western British Isles. Adopting Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis for the spread of Indo-European languages, always a minority view and now disfavored in light of DNA results, Cunliffe goes one step further proposing that the Celtic languages of Western Britain, Ireland, and Western Iberia developed in these places at an early date (3,000 BCE) and a second wave of Celtic languages entered from the East into the Eastern British Isles by 2,000 BCE. However, Archaic Irish of the Ogham inscriptions from about 400 CE appears to be almost identical to Gaulish and is very close to what has been reconstructed for for Proto-Celtic. Supposedly then Proto-Celtic split off from Indo-European about 4,000 BCE and then remained unchanged until about 400 CE!Further, under Cunliffe's proposed hypothesis, the predecessor Indo-European language was carried by migrating peoples to the Aegean (Greece) around 6,000 BCE. Never mind the evidence for migration into Greece by Kurgan-related peoples seems to have occurred in about 1,800 BCE according to archeology and linguistics.While this doesn't mean that Cunliffe is wrong (his hypothesis is intriguing), he presents this radical proposal in a book clearly intended for a layperson but without expanding on the alternative major theory, widely accepted, congruent with linguistic data (except for the phylogenetic analysis on which he bases his hypothesis) and supported by genetic studies, which show the dispersal of Kurgan-related peoples from North of the Black Sea in the Bronze Age in Western Europe with the languages arriving at about the time conventional linguistics suggests they arrived (e.g. about 2,000-1,800 in Greece) and changes in the material record associated specifically with the Steppe Kurgans arriving with them.If you're going to present a radical hypothesis, a laypersons' book is not the place to do it until the hypothesis is widely accepted among at least some scholars. If you're going to unwisely present such a hypothesis, at least cover the alternative. While Cunliffe discusses both the Anatolian and Kurgan theories, an alternative to the in-situ development of Celtic in the Western British Isles in 3,000 BCE (as opposed to the conventionally accepted beginning of dispersal of the IE languages at about this date) is not even presented. It's this lack of development of the widely accepted Kurgan theory and Celtic from the East hypothesis which really bothers me. If this were a monograph directed to academics, it would be another matter. But too many incautious fringe hypotheses are finding their way into books directed at interested amateurs without at least expanding on the alternatives and weighing the merits of the different theories.As far as I am aware, there isn't in fact any major problem with the theory of late arrival (1st millennium BCE) of Celtic languages in the British Isles other than there is no strong change in the material record. But this is often the case - for example the "Germanic" tribes east of the Rhine and the "Celtic" tribes west of the Rhine at the time of the Roman Empire are indistinguishable in terms of their material culture, which is shared despite their language differences. So sometimes this happens.

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What is impressive about this book is the way in which so much time is covered in such a short space. Cunliffe creates a great narrative which really flows- yet at the same time highlights options without bogging down in arguments that cannot be won.

Cunliffe is a noted archaeologist whose books are always a pleasure to read and highly informative. What I especially liked here was his examination of the possible origin of the Celtic language along the European Atlantic coastal region. It is possible that instead of the traditional view, which sees the Celtic language originating in Central Europe from Poland through Gaul and to Italy and Celtiberian Spain, that the Celtic language instead moved from the Atlantic coast, the peoples who eventually came to speak it, having come from the Anatolian region through Italy and along the Mediterranean to what is nowSpain and then to the Atlantic coast; then the developed Celtic language moved to Central Europe. Cunliffe was greatly affected by the DNA analysis of Stephen Oppenheimer in reaching this view, but Cunliffe has long been an expert on the Atlantic coastal regions. Since neither Cunliffe nor Oppenheimer are professional linquists, it will be interesting to see how the linquists react to this view. Cunliffe also follows Oppenheimer in positing that the inhabitants of what is now England may have been speaking a Germanic dialect from as early as 6000 BCE or have developed one from their known frequent interactions with the mainland European Germanic dialect speakers. This would explain why Celtic has left so relatively little trace on present day English and why the Anglo-Saxon dialects became so readily accepted.. Cunliffe is less sure than Oppenheimer that we can differentiate the early Neolithic Germanic influences from the later DNA supplied by by Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and Jutes of the 5th century CE and the still later Viking influence from CE 800 on. Readers should note that these speculations take up but one chapter in a many chaptered book on early Britain.

Cunliffe never disappoints with his career filled stories of systematically reconstructing pre-historic life. Doggerland’s implication will likely always be the unknown lynchpin until the next Ice Age reopens the lost lands for exploration.Of the >250,000 years of anatomically modern man, Britain reveals no evidence of a most ancient human footprint. Britain seems to begin around about the time of Cheddar Man and say 14,000 years ago with increasing clarity by millennia until arriving at relatively modern Stonehenge and forward.Britain Begins peels more or less 10,000 years of layers adequate to infer the nature of the populating wanderers.Detailed and very interesting.

Where are you formative great book. Gave me insight into the forming of United Kingdom.

Barry Cunliffe is a writer of great clarity, with a massive knowledge of his subject. I love the abundant maps & pictures in this book. I am, at the same time, reading his "Pytheas the Greek", which has overwhelmed me, in the way he has pieced together a very intricate puzzle with but a few pieces, & created a masterpiece of easy reading. When I learn & enjoy at the same time, I am very pleased.

I have not read any books about the pre-history of Britain before this one. My taste is also the kings and queens and the big people of history approached based on sources rather than archaeology or evidence. My partner often they write me for my dismissal of evidence and science.That will not happen after this book. It was a completely new way to me of viewing history. He bases his work entirely on scientific evidence using various methods. It is absolutely fascinating. This is a superb review of the archaeological and scientific evidence of our history.The most important thing it tells us is that the right wing view of Britain is that we are a white race that should remain sacrosanct is absolute rubbish. His last line is that Britain is a mongrel race and the better for it. Let the Conservatives on the right wing understand that. Great book.

This is a superb book. It begins by tracing the geographic and geological origins of the country and then moves to losing at the story of humans as the inhabited the land. I was fascinated by his insights as to the benefits and disadvantages of each of the key investigative disciplines, archeology, DNA and chemistry and how when you put them all together you get a better picture. He's flexible inches thinking, clear where we don't know the answer to questions and pretty good and giving options and alternatives to key ideas.Above all else this book is based around the notion that humans are made to move and to travel.Thoroughly enjoyable. Ends with the Normans

Well written, well illustrated and a pleasure to read. Written by a leader in the archeological field (pun intended) this book is well worth the cost and time it takes to read. Free from jargon it is accessible for almost anyone to learn from. If you want a ‘technical’ or ‘academic’ book this might be a little light, but for general readership I would recommend this book.

I wanted a well-researched and technical book by a reputable archaeologist to provide a reliable background overview of the diverse population expansion in Britain from prehistoric times onwards. This book does it.My particular interest is why the earliest stone circles, dating to c3800BC were constructed in Orkney, while later expansion of that architecture developed more widely further south, particularly in southern mainland Britain. The book dosent answer the question but does shed light on immigration via the Atlantic routes from the continental mainland

This looks like a coffee table book but is very academic and detailed. Don’t be fooled by the pictures- it’s a dense read. It is however, simply brilliant and I have learned a tonne of information- indeed for the first time I feel I have a grasp of our ancient history. It was astonishing to understand all the evolutionsOf culture and I can actually say it helped me understand my country and identity. Utter brilliance.