ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE UNEARTHED 600,000-YEAR-OLD EVIDENCE OF BRITAIN’S EARLY INHABITANTS NEAR CANTERBURY, ENGLAND.
The discovery, led by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge has found evidence of early humans that date from between 560,000 and 620,000 years ago during the Palaeolithic Period.

The site was first identified in the 1920’s when labourers found handaxes in an ancient riverbed, which researchers have now applied modern dating techniques through radiometric dating, infrared-radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating and controlled excavations of the site.

In a study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the researchers have confirmed the presence of Homo heidelbergensis, an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene and an ancestor of Neanderthals. Homo heidelbergensis is thought to have descended from the African Homo erectus during the first early expansions of hominins out of Africa beginning roughly 2 million years ago.

Early humans are known to have been present in Britain from as early as 840,000, and potentially 950,000 years ago, but these early visits were fleeting due to cold glacial climatic changes driving populations out of northern Europe which colonised Britain during a warming phase between 560,000 and 620,000 ago. During this period, Britain was connected to Europe on the north-western peninsular of the European continent, allowing populations to migrate to new hunting grounds probably during the warmer summer months.

As well as dating the site, the researchers have discovered new flint artefacts, including early ‘scrapers’, which infrared-radiofluorescence (IR-RF) dating was able to determine the point at which they were buried by studying when feldspar sand-grains were last exposed to sunlight.

Dr Tobias Lauer from the University of Tübingen in Germany said: “The artefacts are precisely where the ancient river placed them, meaning we can say with confidence that they were made before the river moved to a different area of the valley.”

Homo heidelbergensis was a hunter gatherer that ate a diverse range of animal and plant foods. Many of the tools discovered may have been used to process animal carcasses, potentially deer, horse, rhino and bison; as well as tubers and other plants. Evidence of this can be seen in the sharp-edged flake and handaxe tools present at the site. The presence of scraping and piercing implements, however, suggest other activities may have been undertaken.

“The diversity of tools is fantastic. In the 1920s, the site produced some of earliest handaxes ever discovered in Britain. Now, for the first time, we have found rare evidence of scraping and piercing implements at this very early age”, said Dr Alastair Key from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Tomos Proffitt from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, who analysed the artefacts, said: “Scrapers, during the Palaeolithic, are often associated with animal hide preparation. Finding these artefacts may therefore suggest that people during this time were preparing animal hides, possibly for clothing or shelters”. The range of stone tools, not only from the original finds, but also from our new smaller excavations suggest that hominins living in what was to become Britain, were thriving and not just surviving.

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/06/600000-year-old-evidence-of-britains-early-inhabitants/143920

Does anyone else notice everything we were taught in school is being disproven?

Like the earth was created on October the 23rd 4004 BC?

Some of those do look like they were worked. Others look like ordinary sex stones.

Homer erectus

And that water didn't percolate from it's core and flood the globe.

Hand size spearhead for hunting dinosaurs?  

I love seeing old shit like this because I find it interesting, however if I was just fucking around in the countryside and stumbled across one I would just think it was a rock. I don’t know how people can tell the difference between just a busted up stone and some thing that was handcrafted aside from symmetry like in the case of an arrowhead or something but a lot of that old shit just looks like….. a rock to me. Probably why I am not an archaeologist.

[Sarcasm]
You must have missed the memo about science now being an institution that isn't to be questioned. [/Sarcasm]

You don't have to be one, stone tools are still very much useful today in a survival situation and worth learning how to make one. Some of those cutters are even sharper than any metal blade.

I betcha the 10mm rock is missing...

Satan put it there.

I was going to say, hand axes are pretty easy to recognize. I wouldn't want to build a theory on one rock but when you find a bunch of them that have been worked on both sides into a recognizable tool you can infer humans were involved.

Here's a question. Are archaeology grants similar to climate change grants? If the Cambridge archaeologists didn't publish "new" findings, would they continue to receive grants? I think not.

OK, you got me.  lol

lol - it would seem the poster you are addressing has an appropriate sig line...

Meanwhile, Ugg's wife and kids continue to give him yet another foxtail neckwear accessory for every birthday and solstice celebration....

Did they build a chunnel from France and ride a train across?

At that time, they weren't the British Isles.

You’ve discovered the reality of academic research!  More data can change our understanding of the past.

Frustrating but fun.

Well stated.

and Old English 800

Ancient British were shitty flint nappers

I fail to see what leads them to believe those are indeed tools and not just rocks

Depends on your frame if reference.  Very near a very massive object or at speeds near the speed of light, you'd see a different amount of time having gone by since the big bang.  Maybe just a few days.

Read up on the new debate that the James Webb is disproving the big bag.

I've come to the conclusion that there are many, many things outside our realm of understanding.

No matter how much you try to explain differential equations to a dog, they will never understand it.

I believe a similar phenomenon exists for us with regards to time/space. It's just outside of what we are capable of understanding.

Cave bears. And huge fucking Irish Elk.

In surgery they still use flaked obsidian tools sometimes because they are much sharper than an edge you can get from metal. They don't last long, but they are extremely sharp.

Appears to be the case.

So the moon isn’t made of cheese?

Hoax.  Someone made an axe head out of 500,000 year stone and buried it there.

In on this thread but only because I laugh anytime someone says, or writes, homo erectus.

That sounds like some bullshit a professor would say.  

I think it's been the British isles and British peninsula many times, back and forth.

Was the earth in an ice age or between them at ~598k BC?

Avatar checks out.

These researchers are dumb.
"How They Survived:
There is evidence that H. heidelbergensis was capable of controlling fire by building hearths, or early fireplaces, by 790,000 years ago in the form of fire-altered tools and burnt wood at the site of Gesher Benot Ya-aqov in Israel.
Why did they come together at these early hearths?
Perhaps to socialize, to find comfort and warmth, to share food and information, and to find safety from predators."

No you dumb motherfuckers, they came together because of PUSSY!
Why did the chicks want to hang out with OGG?
OGG had fire!
Chicks want to stay warm, OGG had fire, ergo, OGG gets to fuck the chicks that want to stay warm beside his fire.

Why did the chicks want to hang out with OGG?
OGG had food!
Chicks dig food!
OGG was a great hunter.
OGG had food, chicks want foo, OGG gets to fuck chicks.

Why did the chicks want to hang out with OGG?
OGG was a mighty hunter and could kick the shit outta the man bun wearing soy-boy cave dwellers in their prehistoric Crocs.
Chicks want a real man.

That's a new one for me. Who said water percolated from *its* core and flooded the globe?

You idiot, everyone knows they used inches.

Unpossible!  That's 10 times older than the earth!

Great Britain has only been an island for a relatively short time in human history.

Are they in your pleasure journal?

Yeah, if they'd have used fresh stone they'd have been caught right off the bat.

Doggerland baby!

History currently has no mention of the Hyborian Age and the Picts, except for some of Howard's archaeological writings on Conan.

Sure... anything CAN be a hoax... but I don't seen any obvious reason to think this is?

Oh, I don’t know.

Columbus discovered America.
Dinosaurs were lizards

I could go on but I recently discovered American colloquialism was replaced with snark.
I know it’s currently the  ‘in thing’ to catch the arrow and sling it back. That becomes a spectacle when no arrows were ever fired.

Ooops, more Hillbillyisms. My penned thought wasn’t directed at the education system or scientists.
It’s just a matter of irony. A fact of life. Nothing offensive and not an untrue statement. A small scribble on the web.

I could go on but in all sincerity if we don’t understand the premise, it would just be fodder for the kewl kids.