Prehistory
Before AD 43
There is evidence of how people lived in Colchester from the Stone Age more than 10,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found stone handaxes and axe heads all in our One Square Mile. During the Neolithic people became more settled in one place and began growing crops, keeping animals and making pottery. We can see evidence of this at the Garrison site. From around 2000 BC people started making their tools from bronze. The Sheepen Cauldron found on Hilly Fields was used by Bronze Age and Iron Age people for their feasts.
Sheepen Cauldren
Image courtesy of Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service
The Sheepen Cauldron found on Hilly Fields was used by Bronze Age and Iron Age people for their feasts. It is on display in Colchester Castle.
Sheepen Cauldron (dig site)
The Sheepen Cauldron found on Hilly Fields was used by Bronze Age and Iron Age people for their feasts.
Colchester became an important place in the Iron Age from around 700 BC. It was called Camulodunum and was the capital for the Trinovantes. The settlement covered about ten square miles and was protected by defensive ditches called dykes some more than four metres deep. Metal working and coin minting took place in the Sheepen area, just inside our One Square Mile. Some of the coins were marked CAM for Camulodunum and CUN for King Cunobelin. People lived in roundhouses like the one found on the Garrison site and were busy with farming, weaving and making pots. In the late Iron Age, people in Colchester traded with other Iron Age Britons and people across Europe.
Iron Age gold stater
Image courtesy of Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service
Gold coins like this one were minted by the Catuvellauni tribe in Colchester. Coins were decorated with designs of things that were important to the tribe such as horses and wheat.
Giant Iron Age coin roundel
Photograph credit: Kavous Clayton, usage: CC BY-SA 3.0
Colchester artists Henry Collins and Joyce Pallot created a giant representation of an Iron Age coin. Coins like this were minted in Colchester and were decorated with designs of things that were important to the tribe such as horses and wheat. You can see the letters CAMU standing for Camulodunum.
A Roundhouse on the Colchester Garrison site
Image courtesy of Colchester Archaeological Trust
Iron Age people started living in larger settlements or towns. Archaeologists found evidence of a 12 metre roundhouse, pottery and loom weights in this area.