Friday, July 09, 2010

First Britons at 950Kya Surprisingly Adapted

The site of Happisburgh, in Norfolk has yielded remains of humans that is said to date to around 950 thousand years ago. According to the story in the Guardian, by Ian Sample:
While digging along the north-east coast of East Anglia near the village of Happisburgh, archaeologists discovered 78 pieces of razor-sharp flint shaped into primitive cutting and piercing tools.

The stone tools were unearthed from sediments that are thought to have been laid down either 840,000 or 950,000 years ago, making them the oldest human artefacts ever found in Britain.

The flints were probably left by hunter-gatherers of the human species Homo antecessor who eked out a living on the flood plains and marshes that bordered an ancient course of the river Thames that has long since dried up. The flints were then washed downriver and came to rest at the Happisburgh site.
If this is the earliest occupation of hominids in England, then it took them about 800 thousand years to cross the continent from the gates of Europe in Dmanisi. More pieces of the puzzle.

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