Who were the first inhabitants of the British Isles?
The British Isles have a long and complex shared history. While this tends to be presented in terms of national narratives, many events transcended modern political boundaries. In particular these borders have little relevance to early times and in that context can be misleading, though useful as an indication of location to the modern reader. Also, cultural shifts which historians have previously interpreted as evidence of invaders eliminating or displacing the previous populations are now, in the light of genetic evidence, perceived by a number of archaeologists and historians as being to a considerable extent changes in the culture of the existing population brought by groups of immigrants or invaders who at times became a new ruling élite. At a time when the islands were still joined to continental Europe, Homo erectus brought Palaeolithic tool use to the south east of the modern British Isles some 750,000 years ago followed (about 500,000 years ago) by the more advanced tool use o
