Prehistoric Lincolnshire (to c. AD 43)

Palaeolithic Lincolnshire: the first people (before c. 9600 BC)

Long before farming tied people to fields and settlements, hunter-gatherers were already moving through what would become Lincolnshire, living from the wild resources around them.

Palaeolithic handaxes and a worked flake found at Welton le Wold are the earliest known evidence of people in Lincolnshire. ¹

These hunter-gatherers did not live in permanent villages or cultivate fields. Their lives were mobile, shaped by hunting, gathering and carrying the tools they needed from place to place. That mobile way of life continued into the Mesolithic.

Mesolithic Lincolnshire: a changing landscape (c. 9600–4000 BC)

From around 9600 BC, the climate grew warmer. Woodland spread and sea levels rose. ²

To the east of Lincolnshire stretched Doggerland, a broad plain across what is now the North Sea. As sea levels rose, more of it disappeared beneath the water. By around 6200 BC, Britain had become an island. ³

Lincolnshire's hunter-gatherers now lived among woodland, rivers and wetlands. These environments offered animals, fish, plants and other resources, while people continued to travel between places rather than settle permanently.

One such stopping place lay beside the River Witham at what is now Brayford Pool in Lincoln. Hundreds of worked flints found there show that Mesolithic people used the area for short or seasonal stays. ⁴

For thousands of years, hunting and gathering remained the basis of life. Around 4000 BC, that began to change.

Neolithic Lincolnshire: farming, monuments and distant connections (c. 4000–2500 BC)

Farming reached Britain from around 4000 BC, largely with migrant populations whose ancestry came from continental Europe. ⁵

In Lincolnshire, farming changed the relationship between people and the land. Communities increasingly grew crops and kept livestock instead of depending entirely on hunting and gathering.

Woodland was cleared, fields cultivated and livestock managed. People invested far more labour in particular places. Across the Wolds, they raised long barrows, elongated mounds used for collective burial. Their construction required organised labour and left monuments visible for generations. ⁶

Other monuments brought communities together. At Shearman's Wath near Horncastle, a Late Neolithic henge enclosed a circular space probably used for communal or ceremonial activity. ⁷

Lincolnshire was also connected far beyond the county. Jade and nephrite axes found near Lincoln were made from stone originating in the Alps. ⁸ By the time they reached Lincolnshire, these objects had travelled hundreds of miles.

By the end of the Neolithic, communities were clearing land, cultivating crops, keeping animals and building monuments designed to endure. Lincolnshire was becoming a landscape shaped by people.

Bronze Age Lincolnshire: migration, burial, metal and waterways (c. 2500–800 BC)

Around 2500 BC, migrants associated with Beaker culture, named after a distinctive type of pottery, began arriving in Britain from continental Europe. Their arrival contributed to a substantial change in the population. ⁹

Burial customs were changing during the same period. Communal traditions seen in many Neolithic monuments increasingly gave way to burials centred on individuals or smaller groups. Across the Lincolnshire Wolds, circular burial mounds known as round barrows became familiar landmarks. ¹⁰

Bronze changed the tools and weapons people could make. It could be cast into axes, spearheads and swords in ways stone could not. Finds across Lincolnshire show how widely bronze came into use. ¹¹

Movement remained important. Lincolnshire's rivers and estuaries provided natural routes for travel. Around the Humber, they linked inland communities with wider river and coastal networks.

At Brigg, substantial prehistoric wooden craft show that people were travelling through this landscape by water. ¹² Boats could carry people and materials along routes stretching far beyond a single settlement.

By the later Bronze Age, people and materials were moving through networks that reached far beyond Lincolnshire. Farming remained the foundation of life, but migration, metalworking and water transport were reshaping the communities built upon it.

Iron Age Lincolnshire: settlement, production and exchange (c. 800 BC–AD 43)

During the Iron Age, Lincolnshire became more heavily settled and more intensively worked.

Farming communities occupied the Wolds, limestone uplands, river valleys and the edges of the Fens. Some lived in small farmsteads. Others gathered in larger settlements where farming, craft production and exchange came together.

By the Late Iron Age, the Corieltauvi were the main tribal people living across much of Lincolnshire and the wider East Midlands. Exactly how their communities were politically organised remains uncertain. ¹³

Dragonby grew into one of the county's most substantial settlements. People farmed there, kept livestock, made goods and traded. ¹⁴ In the south, Old Sleaford became another important Late Iron Age centre. ¹⁵

Farming remained the foundation of everyday life, but specialist production was becoming increasingly important. Near Lincoln, smiths were working iron locally. ¹⁶ Along the fen edge, communities boiled brine in ceramic vessels until the water evaporated, producing salt. ¹⁷

The Witham Shield, made around 400–300 BC, shows the skill of Iron Age metalworkers. Fashioned from bronze, it was covered with flowing decoration. ¹⁸

By the final centuries of the Iron Age, the Corieltauvi were producing their own coins.

Old Sleaford became a major centre for this work. Thousands of clay mould fragments and crucibles survive from Corieltauvian coin production there. ¹⁹ Thousands of years after hunter-gatherers carried worked flint through Lincolnshire, the Corieltauvi were producing their own coinage.

At Fiskerton, generations maintained a timber causeway across wet ground. Weapons, tools and other valuable objects were repeatedly placed in the water beside it. ²⁰ The wetland was used repeatedly, although the beliefs behind these deposits cannot now be recovered.

By the first century AD, Lincolnshire contained farms, substantial settlements and specialist industries. Iron was worked, salt produced and the Corieltauvi minted coins at Old Sleaford, while rivers and settlements linked communities into wider networks of exchange.

On the eve of Rome (AD 43)

By AD 43, generations of people had shaped Lincolnshire.

Farms and settlements now occupied much of the usable landscape. Crops were grown and livestock raised. Smiths worked iron near Lincoln and salt makers worked along the fen edge. At Old Sleaford, the Corieltauvi were producing their own coins.

In the space of thousands of years, Lincolnshire had moved from small groups of hunter-gatherers carrying stone tools through the landscape to farming communities with substantial settlements, skilled metalworkers, specialised industries and a tribal mint.

Much of Lincolnshire was now home to the Corieltauvi. Then, in AD 43, Emperor Claudius (10 BC–AD 54) launched the Roman invasion of Britain.

Exactly how the Corieltauvi responded remains uncertain. The surviving record does not tell us whether communities in Lincolnshire resisted the Roman advance, accepted it or reacted differently from place to place. ²¹

What Rome encountered was not an empty landscape waiting to be occupied. It was a county already shaped by thousands of years of farming, settlement, craftsmanship, movement and exchange.

Roman rule would bring a new political order to Lincolnshire.