How a team of archaeologists, palaeontologists and earth scientists created a clear view of who our distant relatives were and how they lived
Britain has one of the richest, yet most underappreciated, records of early human history in the world. While human fossils are rare, ancient Britons left behind tools and animal bones in river deposits and caves that reveal tantalising clues about their behaviour and way of life. By analysing this trail of evidence, scientists from Britain, Europe and North America, working jointly from over 20 different research institutions, have collaborated to gain an incredible insight into the lives of our ancient relatives.
When the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project was born in 2001, the researchers set out to address key questions about the early prehistory of Britain, including when people first arrived here, who they were and when Britain became an island.
The idea was to reconstruct the past lives of ancient Britons by carrying out new excavations, but also by reanalysing old finds in existing collections, using state-of-the-art investigative techniques such as scanning microscopy and isotope analysis, that weren’t previously available.
Did you know? The exact date Neanderthals went extinct is disputed
EARLIEST SETTLERS
1 ANCIENT WILDLIFE Primitive mammoths, as well as horses, would have shared life with the first settlers in Britain on the floodplain.
3 CUTTING TOOLS Hunters used flint knives to carve up their quarry, such as deer. They would have eaten the meat raw – it would be another 500,000 years before fire came to Britain.
2 MAN VERSUS BEAST
Hunters would have had to fend off hyenas, which were competitors for food.
