The earliest known humans in Northern Europe: artefacts from the Cromer Forest-bed at Pakefield, Suffolk, UK

Abstract

The human colonisation of Eurasia is a key event in the dispersion of early humans out of Africa, however details about timing and ecological context of the earliest human occupation of northwest Europe is uncertain and strongly debated. The southern Caucasus was occupied around 1.8 million years ago (Ma), and early representatives of Homo dispersed to the Mediterranean regions before the Brunhes-Matuyama magnetic reversal, 780 000 years ago (ka) as human remains from Atapuerca-TD6, Spain (>0.78 ma) and Ceprano, Italy (~0.8 ma) show. Up to now, the earliest uncontested artefacts from northern Europe were much younger (~500 thousand years ago), suggesting a climatic reason why early humans were unable to settle in northern latitudes. The recent discovery of flint artefacts from the Cromer Forest-bed Formation at Pakefield (52 N), UK, from a sequence of beds with rich palaeontological remains, proves that the earliest human colonization of Northern Europe was much older than previously expected. A multidisciplinary approach, involving sequence stratigraphy, palaeomagnetism, Amino-Acid geochronology, and biostratigraphy, indicates that the artefacts date to the early part of the Brunhes Chron, predating any other human unequivocal evidence north of the Alps