bronze mountings. The bows and arrows probably evolved from spear throwing rods. Kings in body armor fought with chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses had bronze fittings. The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims. When bronze came into use, there was a demand for its constituent parts: copper and tin, which were traded by rafts on waterways and the sea. When iron came into use, there were wrought iron axes, saws, adzes [ax with curved blade used to dress wood], files, ploughshares, harrows [set of spikes to break clods of earth on plowed land and also to cover seed when sewn], scythes, billhooks [thick knife with hooked point used to prune shrubs], and spits for hearths. Lead was mined. There was some glassmaking of beads. Wrought iron bars were used as currency.

Hillforts now had wooden palisades on top of their banks to protect the enclosed farmsteads and villages from stock wandering off or being taken by rustlers, and from attacks by wild animals or other people. Later a rampart was added from which sentries could patrol. These were supported by timber and/or stone structures. Timbers were probably transported by carts or dragged by oxen. At the entrances were several openings only one of which really allowed entry. The others went between banks into dead ends and served as traps in which to kill the enemy from above. Gates were of wood, some hung from hinges on posts which could be locked. Later guard chambers were added, some with space for hearths and beds. Sometimes further concentric circles of banks and ditches, and perhaps a second rampart, were added around these forts. They could reach to 14 acres. The ramparts are sufficiently widely spaced to make sling-shotting out from them highly effective, but to minimize the dangers from sling-shotting from without. The additional banks and ditches could be used to create cattle corridors or to protect against spear-thrown firebrands. However, few forts had springs of water within them, indicating that attacks on them were probably expected to be short. Attacks usually began with warriors bristling with weapons and blowing war trumpets shouting insults to the foe, while their kings dashed about in chariots. Sometimes champions from each side fought in single combat. They took the heads of those they killed to hang from their belts or place on wood spikes at the gates. Prisoners, including women and children, might become slaves. Kings sometimes lived in separate palisades where they kept their horses and chariots.

Circles of big stones like Stonehenge were rebuilt so that the sun's position with respect to the stones would indicate the day of longest sunlight and the day of shortest sunlight. Between these days there was an optimum time to harvest the crops before fall, when plants dried up and leaves fell from the trees. The winter solstice, when the days began to get longer was cause for celebration. In the next season, there was an optimum time to plant seeds so they could spring up from the ground as new growth. So farming gave rise to the concept of a year. Certain changes of the year were celebrated, such as Easter, named for the Goddess of the Dawn, which occurred in the east (after lent); May Day celebrating the revival of life; Lammas around July, when the wheat crop was ready for harvesting; and on October 31 the Celtic eve of Samhain, when the spirits of the dead came back to visit homes and demand food or else cast an evil spell on the refusing homes; and at which masked and costumed inhabitants representing the souls of the dead paraded to the outskirts of the settlements to lead the ghosts away from their homes; and at which animals and humans, who might be deemed to be possessed by spirits, were sacrificed or killed perhaps as examples, in huge bonfires [bonefires] as those assembled looked out for spirits and evil beings.

There was an agricultural revolution from the two-field to the three-field system, in which there were three large fields for the heavy and fertile land. Each field was divided into long and narrow strips. Each strip represented a day's work with the plough. One field had wheat, or perhaps rye, another had barley, oats, beans, or peas, and the third was fallow. These were rotated yearly. There was a newly invented plough that was heavy and made of wood and later had an attached iron blade. The plough had a mould-board which caught the soil stirred by the plough blade and threw it into a ridge alongside the furrow dug by the plough blade. This plough was too heavy for two oxen and was pulled by a team of about eight to ten oxen. Each ox was owned by a different man as was the plough, because no one peasant could afford the complete set. Each freeman was allotted certain strips in each field to bear crops. His strips were far from each other, which insured some very fertile and some only fair soil, and some land near his village dwelling and some far away. These strips he cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested for himself and his family. After the harvest, they reverted to common ownership for grazing by pigs, sheep, and geese. As soon as haymaking was over, the meadows became common grazing land for horses, cows, and oxen. Not just any inhabitant, but usually only those who owned a piece of land in the parish were entitled to graze their animals on the common land, and each owner had this right of pasture for a definite number of animals. The faster horse replaced the ox as the primary work animal. Other farm implements were: coulters, which gave free passage to the plough by cutting weeds and turf, picks, spades and shovels, reaping hooks and scythes, and sledge hammers and anvils. Strips of land for agriculture were added from waste land as the community grew. Waste lands were moors bristling with brushwood, or gorse, heather and wanton weeds, reed-coated marshes, quaking peat-bogs, or woods grown haphazard on sand or rock. With iron axes, forests could be cleared to provide more arable land.

Some villages had a smith, a wheelwright, and a cooper. There were villages which had one or two market days in each week. Cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, calves, and hare were sold there. London was a town on the Thames River under the protection of the Celtic river god Lud: Lud's town. It's huts were probably built over the water, as was Celtic custom. It was a port for foreign trade. Near the town was Ludhill. Each Celtic tribe in England made its own coinage. Silver and bronze were first used, and then gold. The metal was put into a round form and then placed between two engraved dies, which were hit.

Flint workers mined with deer antler picks and ox shoulder blade shovels for flint to grind into axes, spearheads, and arrowheads. Mine shafts were up to thirty feet deep and necessitated the use of chalk lamps fueled by animal fat with wicks of moss. The flint was hauled up in baskets.

Common men and women were now buried in tombs within memorial burial mounds of earth with stone entrances and interior chambers. A man's weapons and shield were buried with him and a woman's spindle and weaving baton, and perhaps beads or pottery with her. At times, mounds of earth would simply be covered over piles of corpses and ashes in urns. In these mass graves, some corpses had spear holes or sword cuts, indicating death by violence. The Druid priests, the learned class of the Celts, taught the Celts to believe in reincarnation of the soul after death of one body into another body. They also threw prized possessions into lakes and rivers as sacrifices to water gods. They placed images of gods and goddesses in shrines, which were sometimes large enough to be temples. They thought of their gods as supernatural magicians.

With the ability to grow food and the acquisition of land by conquest by invading groups, the population grew. There were different classes of men. The freemen were eorls [noble freemen] or ceorls [ordinary free farmers]. Slaves were not free. Freemen had long hair and beards. Slaves' hair was shorn from their heads so that they were bald. Slaves were chained and often traded.