THE IRON AGE

People in Iron Age Britain believed in powerful spirits. They met to worship the spirits in sacred places, like the shores of a lake or a clearing in a wood.

Priests known as druids led religious ceremonies. They sacrificed animals and sometimes humans too! The druids gave precious offerings, such as swords and cups, to the spirits. They buried the offerings in the ground or threw them into rivers, lakes and bogs. When the Romans first arrived in Britain they wrote about the religion of the ancient Britons. They described four of their main festivals.

The Iron Age' is the name given to the time period (from approximately 500 BC to 43 AD in Britain) where iron became the preferred choice of metal for making tools. In Europe, The Iron Age marks the end of prehistory after the Stone Age and the Bronze Age.

In Britain the end of the Iron Age is linked to the spread of Roman culture following the Roman invasion of 43 AD.

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