The Earliest Humans
In 2010 archaeologists working near Happisburgh in Norfolk uncovered flint tools dated to about 900,000 years ago. The people who used them were early humans (known as hominoids) who periodically visited Britain in warmer eras between Ice Ages.
During this time Britain wasn’t an island, but a peninsula of the European continent. What is now the river Thames ran into the North Sea at Happisburgh.
The oldest human remains so far found in England date from about 500,000 years ago, and belonged to a six-foot tall man of the species hom*o heidelbergensis. Shorter, stockier Neanderthals visited Britain between 300,000 and 35,000 years ago, followed by the direct ancestors of modern humans.
Ice Age humans created the earliest known cave art in England at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire about 13,000 years ago.
