Fascinated by the story of Ancient Britain, aerial photographer David R Abram has captured a bird’s eye view of our prehistoric sites, and reveals that the land is etched with the extraordinary prints of our forebears
Britain holds tens of thousands of prehistoric sites. Collectively, they illustrate how ways of life developed over long periods of time: how the hunter-gatherer communities of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic gave way to the first herder-farmers from northern France; how their descendants built great earth circles from the chalk soils of Wessex, erecting stone-lined tombs and, centuries on, the colossal enclosures of megaliths.
The story of how these migrants displaced the builders of Stonehenge and Avebury is traced across the British landscape to this day, along with the outlines of the field enclosures, farmsteads and hillforts erected by subsequent generations, when the ‘bow wave’ of Roman influence began to be felt.
These wonders are hidden in plain sight around us. Discovering them will take you to wonderful places that may fundamentally alter the way you think and feel about the land. If I have learned one thing after my prehistoric odyssey around these islands, it is that we should trust our ancestors: they knew all the best places.
Find more spectacular images in Aerial Atlas of Ancient Britain by David R Abram, published by Thames and Hudson (£30, HB).
1. Badbury Rings Dorset
The advent of iron nearly 3,000 years ago had a transformational impact on everyday life in Britain, making wagons more robust and vessels sturdier. Iron ploughshares allowed farmers to work heavier soils, cultivate more land, grow more grain and feed more people. Tools such as hammers and chisels became commonplace, allowing people to build larger and stronger roundhouses to accommodate a growing population. Dorset is home to 18 Iron Age hillforts; Badbury Rings in East Dorset is one of its most impressive, sitting 100 metres above sea level and featuring three defensive rings of ramparts and ditches. The inner ring is thought to date from around 500–600 BC.
2. Nantlle Ridge Snowdonia
A series of large Early Bronze Age cairns overlooks the valley from the great Nantlle Ridge – two of them sit on the summit of Y Garn. Backed by a dramatic wall of dark peaks, these grave-markers barely warrant a mention in local walking guides, perhaps because they are believed to be of fairly recent vintage. But they are probably over 4,000 years old and must have taken years to assemble.
3. Traprain Law East Lothian
This intrusion of volcanic magma was sculpted smooth through the Ice Age and its whaleback-s
