The 'First East Londoners'

There have been vague traces of neolithic tribes in the area known now as east London, for they were normally a transient people going wherever the game went, but sometimes they settled down as they once did in the the area of Lefevre road in Bow. after 3000 years evidence was found of two ditches, which surrounded settlements, and some shards of pottery. 

In the Bronze/Iron age people generally seemed to settle down building their roundhousesinside enclosures such as the one excavated in Parnell road which is a short walk from Lefevre road. Round house villages were built on firm ground that was able to sustain their weight.

However at that time the area of east London was a scattering of islands interspersed with boggy marshland and lakes, so some chose to build their roundhouses on stilts sunken into the marshland or waters edge and this type of building was called a 'crannog'. Some of these types of houses were found to have been built close to the edges of the river Lee where the fish were plentiful.

Further evidence of human habitation was discovered when four skeletons of two men and two women were unearthed under what is to be the Olympic Aquatic centre in Carpenters road. So perhaps they can rightly be called the first eastenders, or they would have been if London had existed then but that was still some centuries in the future. 

 It is known that they lived in a settlement for that is where they were buried, although the roundhouses have long since gone and because they were built of wood all that remains are the shadows of postholes left if the earth as a tantalising echo of the past.   

                          

Bronze/Iron age peoples were Celts and like others of their kin living throughout the British Isleand parts of Europe and are refered to by the metals they worked with and they were mastersat working with metal, as well as mundane objects such as swords and tools, they also produced items of bronze and gold where the artistry is still marveled at today.

One item of an everyday object was found in Wick lane a small bronze arrow head, the shape remained unchanged for centuries.

The shield pictured here was made in the first century of bronze and decorated with enamelled glass beads, it was found in the Thames it shows the typical circles and swirls of Celtic art. It's purpose is unknown, it's unlikely to have been made for a warrior, it was probably made to be used in religious ceremonies or perhaps more likely as an offering to the gods of the river.

The early British Celts of the Bronze age, like all Celts of that time, had a special reverence for rivers and lakes, it was there, they believed that the gods of life dwelled.

In some cases when a sword or a pot was used it was broken before dropping into the river, the reason for this has never been explained, maybe there were differing grades of requests to the gods. If this was so then something like the bronze shield would have been used for something special, perhaps a chieftain would have had it made as a flood gift to the gods to save his people from the ravages of nature drought, flood or famine. 

Another remarkable item found in the Thames was this hornedhelmet, bronze helmets hadbeen found before but this is the first and only one bearing horns.  

Like the shield this probably belonged to a chieftain or perhaps a shaman with the horns representing an animal whose power he was trying to channel, whatever to have found both of these offerings in the same river may have meant that the river Thames also had a special significance. and that is where those living during that time had something in common with today's east Londoners.  

As the river Lea marks the boundary of the eastend to the east it is the river Thames that marks it to the south with it's distinctive loop. A large part of the eastend lies within the loop and the other part nestles above it and to the right and left.   In later centuries the river brought much needed employment when the docks were built within it's distinctive loop, but it was the same loop that made it an easy target for the Luftwaffe came up the river on that bright September day in 1940 to spread death and destruction to the people of the eastend. However that is for another time.

Before we leave the Bronze/Iron age there should be a mention of Old Ford, as its name suggests this was situated where the river Lea was at its most shallow. Recent excavations have uncovered an ancient trackway laid in the Bronze/Iron age and evidence of habitation surrounding it. This was later to be used and improved by the Romans, there was also a statue found whose identity is in dispute.

To some archeologists it is a representation of Mercury, to others it is earlier and respresents the Celtic god Lugus or Lugh who was the god of water especially 'bright water'. He was also the god that the Romans re-named Mercury so perhaps ths is where the confusion arose.  

The Bronze age is estimated to have begun about 2300 BC over time it gradually merged into the Iron age and this ended in 43AD with the coming of the Romans.