Ancient man ventured into northern Europe far earlier than previously thought, settling on England's east coast more than 800,000 years ago, scientists said.
It had been assumed that humans — thought to have emerged from Africa around 1.75 million years ago — kept mostly to relatively warm tropical forests, steppes and Mediterranean areas as they spread across Eurasia.
But the discovery of a collection of flint tools some 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of London shows that quite early on man braved colder climes.
[...]
About 75 flint tools have been found at the site near Happisburgh, a seaside hamlet in Norfolk, Parfitt and colleagues report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
The researchers dated the artifacts to somewhere between 866,000 to 814,000 years ago or 970,000 to 936,000 years ago. That's at least 100,000 years before the earliest known date for British settlement, in nearby Pakefield.
Exactly what kind of humans made these tools is unknown.
"It is impossible to guess who those people were without fossil evidence," said Eric Delson, an anthropologist at Lehman College of the City University of New York, who was not involved in the research.
Mammoths and saber-toothed cats roamed the area at that time, and the River Thames flowed into the sea there — about 150 kilometers (90 miles) to the north of where its mouth is today. The climate was a little colder than now, at least during the winter.
(wow the blog got dusty fast)
Do these count as trace fossils for hominds, I wonder?
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