2200-800 BC Bronze Age

The landscape of eastern England sees the meeting of the Fen wetlands, low chalk hills and fertile flatlands divided throughout by rivers rising in central England that run through to the sea. Much of this area was occupied during the Bronze Age, but areas of boulder clay across Suffolk and Essex only saw settlement later in the period. The coastline that provides the eastern boundary of the region looks directly across a stretch of navigable sea to mainland Europe.

Pots such as Beakers (2400-1800 BC) and Bucket Urns (1700-1100 BC), which are frequently found accompanying the dead, have certain styles that are concentrated in eastern England. Similarly, there are bronze tools and weapons dating from 1600-800 BC that appear also to have this restricted distribution. The presence of objects thought to originate in southern and especially northern England, as well as from across the sea, indicates that eastern England was nevertheless well connected.