Archaeological evidence indicates that southern England was colonised by humans long before the rest of the British Isles due its more hospitable climate between and during the various ice ages of the distant past. The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the sixth century BC, although cultural and trade links with the continent had existed for millennia prior to this. Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his trading journey to the island around 325 BC. Later writers such as Pliny (quoting Timaeus) and Diodorus Siculus (probably drawing on Poseidonius) mention the tin trade from southern England but there is little further historical detail of the people who lived there. Tacitus wrote that there was no great difference in language between the people of southern England and northern Gaul and noted that the various tribes of Britons shared physical characteristics with their continental neighbours.

Julius Caesar visited southern England in 55 and 54 BC and wrote in De Bello Gallico that the population of southern England was extremely large and shared much in common with the other Iron Age tribes on the continent. Coin evidence and the work of later Roman historians has provided the names of some of the rulers of the disparate tribes and their machinations in what was to become England.

There are surprisingly few historical sources for Roman England, we have only one sentence describing the reasons for the construction of Hadrian's Wall for example. The Claudian invasion itself is well-attested and Tacitus included the uprising of Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in 61 in his history. Following the end of the first century however, Roman historians only mention tantalising fragments of information from the distant province. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 5th century Roman influence had declined to such a point that the peoples who were to become the English were emerging.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.