300,000 Year-old Stone Artefacts Discovered

ASE Senior Archaeologist Letty Ingrey inspects the largest handaxe

Credit: Archaeology South-East/ UCL

Researchers at University College London have discovered some of the largest early prehistoric stone tools in Britain. The discoveries were made at Frindsbury in Kent where artefacts were recovered from deep Ice Age deposits above the Medway Valley. A total of eight hundred stone artefacts believed to be over 300,000 years old were recovered.

The unearthed artefacts included two very large flint knives described as “giant handaxes.” It is thought that this type of tool was usually held in the hand and may have been used for butchering animals and cutting meat.

The largest handaxe measured 29.5cm in length and is currently the third largest known to be found in Britain. ‘Giant handaxes’ like this are usually found in the Thames and Medway regions and date from over 300,000 years ago.

One of the handaxes at the point of discovery on site.
Credit: Archaeology South-East/ UCL

Letty Ingrey, a senior archaeologist from the University College London Institute of Archaeology, explained that they likely date back to an interglacial period approximately 300,000 to 330,000 years ago.

“While right now, we aren’t sure why such large tools were being made, or which species of early human were making them, this site offers a chance to answer these exciting questions.”

stated Ms Ingrey.

The site is thought to date to a period in the early prehistory of Britain when Neanderthal people and their cultures were beginning to emerge and may even have shared the landscape with other early human species. During this period the Medway Valley would have been a wild landscape of wooded hills and river valleys, where red deer, horses, now-extinct straight-tusked elephants, and lions roamed freely.

Excavations revealed artefacts in deep Ice Age sediments preserved on a hillside above the Medway Valley. 

Credit: Archaeology South-East/ UCL

        This exceptionally large axe may have had a specialised function in early human society, or relate to specific human groups, or even human species. Handaxes are stone artefacts that have been chipped, or knapped, on both sides to produce a symmetrical shape with a long cutting edge. 

The largest giant handaxe photographed from four different angles.

Credit: Archaeology South-East/ UCL

Throughout Africa and Europe, handaxes have been discovered at various archaeological sites dating back from 1.7 million to 300,000 years ago. By 200,000 years ago, many innovations had been made in stone tool technology. For example, large handaxes became less common and were replaced with a range of smaller tools in more diverse toolkits. Tools made of flakes were favoured over large cores.

Today, modern humans or Homo sapiens, inhabit the whole earth. Looking back over the last half a million years, the picture was much more diverse, with three distinct lineages appearing: Homo erectus in Asia; and Homo heidelbergensis giving rise to Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo sapiens in Africa.

The Neanderthals thrived in Europe for around 300,000 years before modern humans arrived. Neanderthals occupied Europe for at least 100,000 years during a period when glacial cycles dominated the climate. Excavations in Ibex, Vanguard, and Gorham’s Caves in Gibraltar have revealed evidence of Neanderthal occupation dating to possibly as late as 28,000 years ago.

The ancestors of modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and another extinct line of humans known as the Denisovans. Modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans shared a common ancestor who lived roughly 600,000 years ago.

For further information see:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/jul/giant-stone-artefacts-found-rare-ice-age-site-kent

https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue61/6/full-text.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-66112136

Cheddar Man - our 10,000-year-old black ancestor

The model of Cheddar Man rendered by Kennis & Kennis Reconstructions (Image: ©Tom Barnes/Channel 4)

Recently, world media has been abuzz with the news that our earliest ancestors were dark skinned and had blue eyes. 

A 10,000-year-old hunter had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed. The Cheddar Man fossil was unearthed in Gough’s Cave in Somerset over a century ago. He was one of the first settlers to have crossed Doggerland, the land bridge from continental Europe to Britain, after the glaciers began receding at the end of the last ice age.

A Team of scientists using the latest genetic sequencing technology located the genes linked to skin and hair colour and texture, and eye colour and discovered he had a “dark to black” skin tone and blue eyes.

Reassembled skeleton of Cheddar Man, the oldest complete skeleton found in the UK. (Image: Natural History Museum )

Cheddar Man is the oldest almost complete skeleton of our species, Homo sapiens, ever found in Britain. Most of the Mesolithic human remains that date to this period were discovered in caves and there is a strong tradition of cave burial in the region.  

'About a mile up the road from where Cheddar Man was found, there is another cave known as Aveline's Hole which is one of the biggest Mesolithic cemeteries in Britain. Archaeologists found the remains of about 50 individuals, all deposited over a short period of 100-200 years,' says Dr Tom Booth, a postdoctoral researcher working closely with the Natural History Museum's human remains collection to investigate human adaptation to changing environments.

Scientists believe that northern European peoples became lighter-skinned over time because pale skin absorbs more sunlight. These findings suggest that pale skinned people emerged with the advent of farming, at a time when people were obtaining less vitamin D from oily fish. We now know the genes for lighter skinned European populations spread far later than originally thought. These findings show that people of white British ancestry alive today, are direct descendants of this black population.

'Until recently it was always assumed that humans quickly adapted to have paler skin after entering Europe about 45,000 years ago,' says Dr Booth. 'Pale skin is better at absorbing UV light and helps humans avoid vitamin D deficiency in climates with less sunlight.'

The Skull of Cheddar Man. 

(Image: Natural History Museum )

Scientists now believe that pale skin probably arrived in Britain with a migration of people from the Middle East around 6,000 years ago. These people had pale skin and brown eyes and absorbed populations like the ones Cheddar Man belonged to. No-one's entirely sure why pale skin evolved in these farmers, but their cereal-based diet was probably deficient in Vitamin D. This would have required agriculturalists to absorb this essential nutrient from sunlight through their skin.

  Modern humans were in Britain as early as 40,000 years ago, but a period of extreme cold known as the Last Glacial Maximum drove them out some 10,000 years later. There's evidence from Gough's Cave that hunter-gatherers ventured back about 15,000 years ago, establishing a temporary presence when the climate briefly improved. However, they were soon forced to leave again by another cold period. Britain was once again settled 11,000 years ago and has been inhabited ever since.

Researchers extracted DNA from Cheddar Man, who was discovered in 1903. The DNA results suggest Cheddar Man could not drink milk as an adult. This capability only spread much later, after the beginning of the Bronze Age. Present-day Europeans owe on average 10% of their ancestry to Mesolithic hunters like Cheddar Man. Analysis of his genome reveals he was closely related to other Mesolithic individuals or Western Hunter-Gatherers who have been examined from Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary.

In 1997, it was reported that a living descendant of Cheddar Man had been found. The DNA of Adrian Targett, who was 42 years old when that discovery was made, was found to match that belonging to Cheddar Man. Both Targett and Cheddar Man share a common maternal ancestor.

Within Gough’s Cave, scientists have found numerous human and animal remains with clearly visible signs of butchery. The human remains belonged to around 5 or 7 people, including a three-year-old child and two adolescents. All of them had cut-marks and breakage consistent with defleshing and eating.

According to scientists, the remains do not display any evidence of violence prior to death, so the people who were consumed were not killed and eaten because of conflict. Scientists concluded that this was an example either of cannibalism or the removal of flesh from bones after death, which was occasionally done for ritualistic purposes.

These people died during the Ice Age, when food resources were very limited, which may explain the necessity to consume human remains. The researchers suggest that people from the Gough's Cave used cups made from skulls as part of ritual practices.

Scientists from the Natural History Museum in London and University College London (UCL) compared hundreds of cut-marks found on both human and animal bones at Gough’s Cave. After examining the engravings on a human bone, they concluded that cannibals ate their relatives and then performed ritualistic burials with the remains.

Conclusion

One of the first settlers to arrive in Britain from continental Europe 10,000 years ago had dark skin and blue eyes. Cheddar Man is the oldest almost complete skeleton of our species, Homo sapiens, ever found in Britain. These findings show that people of white British ancestry alive today, are direct descendants of this black population. Present-day Europeans owe on average 10% of their ancestry to Mesolithic hunters like Cheddar Man.

For further information please see:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/blue-eyed-black-skinned-british-hunter-closes-race-debate-009562

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42939192

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/cheddar-man-mesolithic-britain-blue-eyed-boy.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42939192

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5IGI1CxONs

The Lion Man: an Ice Age Masterpiece

Lion Man from three angles. Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 40,000 years old. © Ulmer Museum.

The British Museum in London is currently holding an exhibition entitled ‘Living with Gods’ which runs until 8^th April 2018. Among the exhibits on show is a remarkable carved figurine called Lion Man which is on loan from the Umber Museum in Germany.

The Lion Man sculpture found in Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, made from mammoth ivory, has been described as a masterpiece. It is 40,000 years old providing the oldest known evidence of religious belief. It stands 31 centimetres tall and has the head of a cave lion with a partly human body. This is the oldest known depiction of a being that does not exist in physical form but symbolises ideas about the supernatural. In 2017, UNESCO acknowledged Stadel Cave as a World Heritage Site.

Found in 1939, scholars believe that the Lion Man makes sense as part of a story that might now be called a myth. The wear on his body caused by handling suggests that he was passed around and rubbed, perhaps, as part of some ritual.  An experiment using the same sort of stone tools available in the Ice Age indicates that Lion Man took more than 400 hours to make.

Archaeological discoveries in other caves in this region include small sculptures often found with large amounts of stone tools and animal bones that indicate people lived in the shelter of the daylight areas of these sites. Hybrid creatures, half-man and half-beast also appear in cave drawings in France.

The Lion Man. Stadel Cave, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 40,000 years old. The oldest known evidence of religious belief in the world. © Ulmer Museum.

Lion Man may represent a shaman whose preferred costumes were often hides of the more dangerous Ice Age animals. A shaman is a person who acts as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, predict the future and control otherworldly forces. From ancient times, the lion has been viewed as a symbol of the masculine virtues of courage and strength. Shamans still exist today in the Amazon region and Australia.

Stadel Cave, where the Lion Man was found, is different. It faces north and does not get the sun. It is cold, and the concentration of debris accumulated by human activities is much less than at other sites. Lion Man was found in a dark inner chamber, carefully put away in the darkness with only a few perforated arctic fox teeth and a cache of reindeer antlers nearby.  Archaeologists think that Stadel Cave was used as a place where people would come together occasionally around a fire to share a particular understanding of the world expressed through beliefs, symbolised in sculpture, and acted out in rituals.

Many fragments were overlooked in the cave when the pre-war dig was abruptly terminated due to the outbreak of World War 11. However, archaeologists have recently discovered previously unknown fragments of the figurine and are piecing it back together. This work has prompted some experts to question if, perhaps, the 40,000-year-old statue represents a female shaman? Scientists hope to resolve a decades-long debate.

Those who believe that Lion Man is in fact a woman are convinced that primitive societies were matriarchal. An image of a 14,000-year-old human body with an animal head discovered in the Las Caldas cave in Spain is obviously female. The head looks like that of an ibex, while the lower part of the body is clearly female.

Prehistoric religion reflected people’s need to understand the world and explain disasters. Through rituals and offerings, ancient societies sought to bribe or appease the divine forces controlling the world or its individual components. Since Neanderthal times, people have practised rites that showed concern for their dead, perhaps linked to a belief in an afterlife.

These new revelations offer a greater insight into the mind of the prehistoric sculptor, who created the figure some 40,000 years ago. His ancestors had migrated to Europe, which had been controlled by the Neanderthals, shortly before.

Lion Man has provided us with at least some insight into religious belief and practice 40,000 years ago. We can never hope to understand the mindset of these ancient people, but the significance of this tiny figurine is clear from the sheer number of hours it would have taken to make it. It is worth pondering that this work was undertaken at a time when our early ancestors would have struggled simply to survive during harsh climatic conditions.

For further information please see:

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/the-lion-man-an-ice-age-masterpiece/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McYem7Qz9AI

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05kgdm1

Re-writing Ireland's Ancient History

Fragment of Bear Bone from Cave

County Clare

The recent announcement that scientists had dated a fragment of bear bone to 10,500 BC, thereby, pushing back the date for human occupation in Ireland by 2,500 years, has caused quite a stir in the academic community. Until now, the earliest known human activity in Ireland was dated to the Mesolithic period around 8,000BC at Mount Sandel in Derry.

Remarkably, the bear bone was discovered in a cave in County Clare in 1903 but lay for over a century in a storage box in the National Museum of Ireland. Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo and Dr Ruth Carden of the National Museum decided to examine the bone and subject it to radiocarbon dating. Dr Dowd is a lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology at IT Sligo’s School of Science and is a specialist in Irish cave archaeology.

Excavation in 1903

Tests revealed that the patella or knee bone of the brown bear – which showed clear marks of the animal having been butchered - dated back to the Palaeolithic period around 10,500 BC. Brown bears are believed to have become extinct in Ireland around 1,000BC. This incredible discovery is set to re-write Ireland’s settlement history showing that humans were hunting in Ireland much earlier than previously thought. A second round of radiocarbon tests confirmed that the bear died circa 10,500BC.

“Here we had evidence of someone butchering a brown bear carcass and cutting through the knee probably to extract the tendons. Yes, we expected a prehistoric date, but the Palaeolithic result took us completely by surprise,” said Dr Dowd.

Further analysis of the cut marks on the bone by experts from the British Museum, University of York and European University in Hungary revealed the marks were made on fresh bone and dated from the same era. Repeated attempts by early hunters to cut through the tough knee joint left seven marks on the bone surface. Experts think that the implement used would probably have been something like a long flint blade.

As the bone was in fresh condition it is thought that these early hunters were carrying out activities in the immediate vicinity - perhaps butchering a bear inside the cave or at the cave entrance. Dr Dowd believes they were extracting the tendons for use as string or for sewing, while the bear carcass would also have provided food and fur.

Some 12,500 years ago the last Ice Age was coming to an end in Ireland. As the ice retreated northwards, humans followed the thaw from central and southern Europe. Ireland was still connected to Britain at this point, as was Britain to mainland Europe. Ireland became an island about 8,700 years ago, as the last land bridges between here and Scotland were washed over.

It appears that archaeological text books may have to be re-written to reflect these new findings. This is particularly exciting given that experts have only recently started to appreciate the extent of human occupation in Ireland during the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age (8,000 – 4,000 BC) with about twenty important sites identified around Ireland. It has been argued that evidence for the Mesolithic Period in Ireland has gone largely unrecognised and where this exists the extent of the evidence has been overlooked.

Where did the first Irish settlers come from? Scholars believe that the most likely ‘homelands’ of the earliest human colonists in Ireland are Scotland, Isle of Man and Wales.

Archaeologists now hope to conduct a detailed examination of the cave itself using modern forensic equipment. Meanwhile, we wait with bated breath for the National Museum of Ireland to give up more of its fascinating secrets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_CRQQ-loSo