NOTE: This timeline provides some key dates in later British prehistory as a chronological setting for the story of Stonehenge. A small number of important dates elsewhere in the world are also included (in italic type).

c.10,900 BC

Start of the final cold phase of the Ice Age.

Glaciers start to reform in upland parts of Scotland, Wales and England.

c.10,500 BC

Start of Japanese Jomon pottery tradition.

c.10,000 BC

Earliest agriculture begins in Iran.

c.9000 BC

Earliest agriculture begins in India.

c.8000 BC

Potatoes farmed in the Andean region of South America.

c.9600 BC

Climate warms by ten degrees Celsius in just 50 years. Sea levels rise.

c.9400 BC

Humans return to Britain, then joined to continental Europe.

c.9300–8400 BC

Star Carr Mesolithic site (North Yorkshire) first occupied by this date.

c.8000 BC

Building of the walls of Jericho.

c.6500 BC

Britain becomes an island, due to continuously rising sea levels.

c.6200 BC

Massive tsunami floods Norway, parts of Scotland and northern England.

c.5500 BC

First causewayed enclosures built in continental Europe.

c.4200 BC

Arrival of farming in Britain. End of the Mesolithic.

c.4000 BC

The ancestor to modern maize farmed in Mesoamerica.

c.4000–3500 BC

The Early Neolithic period in Britain.

c.3900–3800 BC

Construction of first megalithic tombs in Britain.

c.3800–3600 BC

Main construction phase for long barrows in Britain.

c.3800–3400 BC

Construction and use of causewayed enclosures in Britain.

c.3500–2900 BC

The Middle Neolithic period in Britain.

c.3200 BC

Construction of the great chambered tomb of Newgrange, Ireland.

c.3200–1600 BC

Era of stone circles in Britain.

c.2900–2500 BC

The Late Neolithic period in Britain.

c.3200–2800 BC

Construction of early, or formative, henges.

c.2900–1800 BC

Construction of classic henges.

c.2500–2200 BC

The British Copper Age, or Chalcolithic.

c.2200–1500 BC

The Early Bronze Age.

c.2000 BC

Field systems are constructed in Britain.

c.1600–1046 BC

Shang Dynasty in China.

c.1500 BC

Barrows, henges and ritual landscapes decline rapidly.

1332–1323 BC

Reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamun of Egypt.

c.1500–1000 BC

The Middle Bronze Age.

c.1000–8/700 BC

The Late Bronze Age.

c.1000 BC

The first hillforts are constructed.

c.8/700 BC – AD 43

The Iron Age.

476–221 BC

Great Wall of China built during the period of the Warring States.

55 and 54 BC

Julius Caesar’s two campaigns in Britain.

AD 43

Roman troops under the Emperor Claudius invade Britain. Prehistory ends.