 East of England Sense of Place Suffolk
Guided tours of Suffolk's past
Introduction to Suffolk
Early History
Suffolk has the earliest site offering evidence of tool-making in the whole country – at High Lodge near Mildenhall. Flint tools made by Homo heidelbergensis half a million years ago, in a warm interval during the Ice Age, have been found there.
As the ice sheets melted, the sea level rose and Britain eventually became an island in about 6000 BC. By 4000 BC Neolithic people – who had learned to grow crops and keep animals – had arrived in Suffolk. These New Stone Age farmers favoured sandy soils (which we think of as less productive) because they are easy to cultivate. The heavy clay soils of central Suffolk probably remained largely forested until the latter part of the Iron Age, in the final centuries BC.
The Romans landed in AD43 and ruled Britain for nearly 400 years. Boudica's revolt in AD60–61 is notorious. Her people, the Iceni, lived in Norfolk and the northern half of Suffolk. After the revolt new small towns and numerous farmsteads across the country indicate a stable and fairly prosperous life for the descendants of the Iceni and the other local tribes. By the end of the period there were some extremely rich landowners as demonstrated by the wealth buried in the Mildenhall and Hoxne hoards.
In the 3rd century the Romans built Walton Castle at Felixstowe (now destroyed by the sea), as one of a series of coastal forts for protection against raiders from northern Europe. In AD410 the legions and provincial government were recalled to Italy, and after this the Anglo-Saxons gradually took control of the county.
For the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project go to http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/ahob/index_2.html www.slamnet.org.uk/history/enquiries/MildenhallTreasure is a site for schools about a Romano-British treasure hoard found in Suffolk – and the story that Roald Dahl wrote about its discovery.
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