Stone Age Britons pay surprise visit
By Bruce Bower
Scientists excavating ancient river sediment along England’s southeastern coast have unearthed stone tools from roughly 700,000 years ago, the earliest evidence of human ancestors in northern Europe.
A team led by Simon A. Parfitt of University College London found 32 pieces of worked flint, including a cutting implement with a sharpened edge and a fist-size rock from which smaller, tool-size pieces had been hammered. These unexpected discoveries occurred near the village of Pakefield, Suffolk, and near the base of an eroding cliff that has been combed by fossil hunters for the past 200 years.