England became inhabited more than
800,000 years ago, as the discovery of flint tools and footprints at
Happisburgh in Norfolk has revealed. The earliest evidence for early
modern humans in North West Europe, a jawbone discovered in Devon at
Kents Cavern in 1927, was re-dated in 2011 to between 41,000 and 44,000 years old. Continuous human habitation dates to around 13,000 years ago (see
Creswellian), at the end of the
last glacial period. The region has numerous remains from the
Mesolithic,
Neolithic, and
Bronze Age, such as
Stonehenge and
Avebury. In the
Iron Age, England, like all of
Britain south of the
Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the
Celtic people known as the
Britons, including some
Belgic tribes (e.g. the
Atrebates, the
Catuvellauni, the
Trinovantes, etc.) in the south east. In AD 43 the
Roman conquest of Britain began; the
Romans maintained control of their
province of Britannia until the early 5th century.