Evidence suggests that Cornwall has been occupied as early as the Lower Paleolithic period.
It continued to be occupied in the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages.
It was during the Neolithic period that the Celts who are believed to be the ancestors and progenitors of the Cornish people left the Iberian Peninsula and moved on to Great Britain.
These Celts formed a series of related an interconnected tribes, cultures, and identities.
In the area of the country that would later develop into Cornwall, two tribes inhabited the Kingdom of Dumnonia.
These were the Dumnonii and the Cornovii.
When the Romans came to conquer Britain, they left this kingdom virtually untouched.
Their rule barely extended past Exeter.
The Romans did record the existence of these Celtic tribes however.
The Dumnonii are mentioned in their initial records of the area and the Cornovii are later mentioned as well.
But the first accounts of Cornwall come from Greek historians.
Diodorus Siculus mentions them and, interestingly enough, the tin trade that would help to define the region and its culture.
He notes, as well, that these people have trade relations with foreign merchants and that these interactions have made them rather more civilized than many other Celtic tribes found in Britain at the time.
The Cornish people were already beginning to form a distinct kingdom peopled by a distinct race at the time of the Roman incursion on Britain.
This major historical event barely affected their development in any direct fashion.
Ironically perhaps, the Roman influence on Cornwall and the Cornish people was greatest at the time of their withdrawal from Britain.
The Sack of Rome in 410 prompted a wholesale withdrawal of the Romans, who hadn't really bothered to extend their control to Cornwall anyway, which left the door open to an influx of Celtic Christian missionaries from Ireland.
These missionaries had a much more profound effect on the Cornish people, their culture, architecture, and faith.
In addition, the Roman withdrawal was followed by the increasing incursions of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons.
This posed a much more serious threat to the Brittons and the groups fought fiercely over territory.
In 936, these hostilities were marked by the creation of a formal boundary between the Cornish and the Saxons at the River Tamar.
Cornwall became, in a sense, the last bastion of Brittonic culture and the distinct Cornish identity, as we know it now began to develop.
It continued to be occupied in the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages.
It was during the Neolithic period that the Celts who are believed to be the ancestors and progenitors of the Cornish people left the Iberian Peninsula and moved on to Great Britain.
These Celts formed a series of related an interconnected tribes, cultures, and identities.
In the area of the country that would later develop into Cornwall, two tribes inhabited the Kingdom of Dumnonia.
These were the Dumnonii and the Cornovii.
When the Romans came to conquer Britain, they left this kingdom virtually untouched.
Their rule barely extended past Exeter.
The Romans did record the existence of these Celtic tribes however.
The Dumnonii are mentioned in their initial records of the area and the Cornovii are later mentioned as well.
But the first accounts of Cornwall come from Greek historians.
Diodorus Siculus mentions them and, interestingly enough, the tin trade that would help to define the region and its culture.
He notes, as well, that these people have trade relations with foreign merchants and that these interactions have made them rather more civilized than many other Celtic tribes found in Britain at the time.
The Cornish people were already beginning to form a distinct kingdom peopled by a distinct race at the time of the Roman incursion on Britain.
This major historical event barely affected their development in any direct fashion.
Ironically perhaps, the Roman influence on Cornwall and the Cornish people was greatest at the time of their withdrawal from Britain.
The Sack of Rome in 410 prompted a wholesale withdrawal of the Romans, who hadn't really bothered to extend their control to Cornwall anyway, which left the door open to an influx of Celtic Christian missionaries from Ireland.
These missionaries had a much more profound effect on the Cornish people, their culture, architecture, and faith.
In addition, the Roman withdrawal was followed by the increasing incursions of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons.
This posed a much more serious threat to the Brittons and the groups fought fiercely over territory.
In 936, these hostilities were marked by the creation of a formal boundary between the Cornish and the Saxons at the River Tamar.
Cornwall became, in a sense, the last bastion of Brittonic culture and the distinct Cornish identity, as we know it now began to develop.
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