Site 'overlooked for over 90 years,' was home to some of Britain's earliest humans, study finds


One of the oldest known Stone Age societies in Northern Europe has been discovered using hand axes discovered in a riverbank in the county of Kent in southeast England.

The stone tools were found in the 1920s and are now housed at The British Museum, but a recent research has used contemporary techniques to date them precisely for the first time, proving that early people lived in southern Britain between 560,000 and 620,000 years ago.

In order to establish when the objects were buried, researchers employed infrared-radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating, a method that pinpoints the time when certain mineral grains in rock and sand were last exposed to sunlight.

"The variety of tools is incredible. The location yielded some of the earliest handaxes ever unearthed in Britain in the 1920s. Now that we have discovered extremely uncommon evidence of scraping and piercing tools at such a young age, "According to a news release from Alastair Key, an assistant professor of palaeolithic archaeology at the University of Cambridge who oversaw the excavation of the site.

These instruments were used when Britain was a part of Europe, not an island. In contrast to the present-day Kent shoreline, which is close to the archaeological site at Fordwich, near Canterbury, where the artifacts were discovered, this allowed the area's inhabitants, who would have lived as hunter-gatherers, to wander across a much greater region.

Homo heidelbergensis, an ancestor of Neanderthals noted for eating a variety of plants and animals, would have utilized the tools. The majority of the 330 tools discovered so far were likely used to dismember animal carcasses. However, it's possible that the scrapers and piercers found during recent excavations at the site were used to prepare animal skins for use as apparel or as a building material.
The aquatic animal that millions of ancient Americans consumed is today considered a delicacy

The aquatic animal that millions of ancient Americans consumed is today considered a delicacy

According to the study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, this implies that the society wasn't simply a pioneering group living at the fringes of Europe but one that prospered in the region.

Homo heidelbergensis populations in Europe are thought to have developed into Neanderthals, an early human species that existed for 350,000 years before going extinct about 40,000 years ago. It is believed that Homo sapiens originated from a distinct population of Homo heidelbergensis in Africa.

Although the earliest documented early human presence in Britain dates back to 840,000 years ago and may have even reached 950,000 years ago, these early appearances were brief. The earliest indication of hominins living in Britain may now be found in a set of footprints near Happisburgh in Norfolk.

A cave discovery in Laos may provide new information regarding the greatest riddle of human evolution.

Laos's cave discovery may provide further information about the greatest riddle of human evolution.

The research highlighted that inhabitants were periodically driven out of Northern Europe by cold glacial periods, and that until recently there was little proof that people had lived in Britain during the mild interval between 560,000 and 620,000 years before the present.

According to the report, the Kent site has been "ignore for over 90 years."

"There is still a ton we don't know about these communities. Because stone tools like these are so uncommon in Britain, we are especially hoping that future excavations may turn up the skeletal remains of the people who created them "According to the press release, excavation co-leader and University of Kent paleoanthropologist Matthew Skinner.

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