The prehistoric era in Britain is divided into roughly the following time periods. 'Prehistoric' means, literally, before recorded history, so that virtually everything we know about these periods has to be obtained from archaeology and other non-written sources of information.

Palaeolithic (c450,000-10,000 BC)
Mesolithic (c10,000-4500 BC)
Neolithic (c4500-2300 BC)
Bronze Age (c2300-700 BC)
Iron Age (c700 BC-43 AD)

The terms 'Bronze Age', 'Iron Age' and so on are used by archaeologists as a convenient shorthand for discussing the chronology of the past. In reality, the changes from one period to the next would have been far less clear cut and more gradual than these sharp distinctions imply. For example, our prehistoric ancestors didn't stop using stone tools on 31 December 2301 BC and switch to bronze tools overnight!

The accepted dates for these periods also vary in different parts of the world, because different areas developed at different times. Middle Eastern and Mediterranean civilisations, for example, developed metalworking before people living in Britain, so that their Bronze and Iron Ages arrived earlier.