Early humans crouched around a river next to a dead deer, with other animals roaming in the background.

Research project

First pioneers in northern Europe 900,000 years ago

Key project information

Duration

May 2004 – June 2022

Contact details

Via the Pathways to Ancient Britain website

Partners

Natural History Museum, London
Queen Mary, University of London
University College London

When did the first humans reach northern Europe?

The coastal cliffs of East Anglia have revealed the earliest evidence of humans in northern Europe around 900,000 years ago. Since 2005, stone tools and the bones of early mammoths have been excavated from ancient river and estuary sediments beneath the foreshore at Happisburgh in Norfolk. The river was an early course of the River Thames, which flowed through the north of London and across East Anglia.

Remarkably, human footprints were also discovered in the estuary muds. They represent a small family group who had paused at the edge of the river. How did these early pioneers survive the long winters of northern Europe? Did they have clothing, shelter and fire? Were they hunters or scavengers? 

This project will monitor and record new archaeological sites and findings on the Happisburgh coast to understand how early humans adapted to the colder climates of northern latitudes.

Find out about the latest project news

About the project

Happisburgh (pronounced Haze-bru), on the north Norfolk coast, has a remarkable concentration of early Stone Age sites that have all been discovered since 2001. These are part of the Cromer Forest-bed which is a complex series of river, estuary and floodplain sediments that span over a million years. They lie beneath and pre-date the coastal cliffs and have only been exposed because of coastal erosion. 

The oldest of these sites, known as Happisburgh Site 3, is an ancient river channel dating to either 850,000 or 950,000 years ago. Archaeologists from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) Project and subsequently the Pathways to Ancient Britain project have been working at the site since 2005. Collaborating with local experts, they've excavated and studied artefacts preserved at this site that reveal a grassland river valley teeming with deer, horses, mammoths, rhinoceroses and even hippopotamuses, with the surrounding hills dominated by thick coniferous forest. 

The large-scale excavations were completed in 2012 and human footprints were discovered during a geological survey in 2013. Since then, the team has worked with local amateur archaeologists and palaeontologists to help collect and record the numerous stone tools and fossil bones that are regularly found on the beach, and to identify new sites along the East Anglian coast.

Aims

This project aims to:

  • Discover new sites along the East Anglian coast that may reveal even earlier evidence of humans in the Cromer Forest-bed.
  • Record new discoveries of stone tools and fossil bones from the Cromer Forest-bed in collaboration with Norfolk Museums Service.
  • Contribute to future British Museum exhibitions on early humans.

Alongside this work on the coast, Rachel Bynoe and a team from the University of Southampton have located offshore deposits of the Cromer Forest-bed. At what may be the world's oldest underwater archaeological site, the team aims to recover stone tools from these sediments.  

To encourage interest and understanding of the significance of the Cromer Forest-bed to studies of early human history, the team regularly give public talks and beach walks showing the sites and cliff-edge exposures. They also hold regular 'fossil road shows' so that people can bring new beach finds to be identified and recorded.

Conclusion

The coastal exposures around Happisburgh continue to reveal evidence of the earliest humans in northern Europe, with several sites dating from 900,000–500,000 years ago. The earliest showed humans occupying the grassland estuary of the proto-Thames (an early stage of the Thames' development as a river) surrounded by coniferous forest. Questions remain as to whether they had clothing, shelter or fire to survive the long, cold winters of northern Europe.

Excavation on the beach is now difficult due to access problems between tides, so work is focused on maximising the recovery and recording of artefacts and fossils through local volunteers and collectors. Almost 2,000 flint artefacts and mammalian fossils have been discovered by members of the public and recorded by the project team in the last few years. These new finds have not only added to the excavated assemblages from Happisburgh, but they've also led to the location of potential new sites, both on and offshore.

Meet the team

Nick Ashton.

Nick Ashton

Principal Investigator
Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
British Museum

Rob Davis.

Rob Davis

Co-Investigator
Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
British Museum

Simon Lewis.

Simon Lewis

Co-Investigator
Queen Mary, University of London

Simon Parfitt.

Simon Parfitt

Co-Investigator
University College London

Rachel Bynoe.

Rachel Bynoe

Research Associate 
University of Southampton

Claire Harris.

Claire Harris

Research Associate
Queen Mary, University of London

Project team

The team

Outputs

Steps from history: The Happisburgh footprints and their connections with the past

BOOK CHAPTER

Nick Ashton

Reading Prehistoric Human Tracks: pages 153-168.

Published in 2021

Coastal curios? An analysis of ex situ beach finds for mapping new Palaeolithic sites at Happisburgh, UK

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Rachel Bynoe; Nick Ashton; Tim Grimmer; Peter Hoare; Joanne Leonard; Simon Lewis; Darren Nicholas; Simon Parfitt

Journal of Quaternary Science 36(2): pages 191–210

Published in 2021

Human occupation of northern Europe in MIS 13: Happisburgh Site 1 (Norfolk, UK) and its European context

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Simon Lewis; Nick Ashton; Michael Field; Peter Hoare; Hans Kamermans; Monika Knul; Herman Mücher; Simon Parfitt; Wil Roebroeks; Mark Sier

Quaternary Science Reviews 211: pages 34–58

Published in 2019

Understanding and Monitoring the Cromer Forest-bed Formation

REPORT

Nick Ashton; Simon Lewis; Simon Parffitt; Mark Bates; Richard Bates; Rachel Bynoe; Justin Dix; Peter Hoare; Stuart Fraser

Historic England Research Report Series 62–2018

Published in 2018

Hominin footprints from Early Pleistocene deposits at Happisburgh, UK

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Nick Ashton; Simon Lewis; Isabelle De Groote; Sarah Duffy; Mark Bates; Richard Bates; Peter Hoare; Mark Lewis; Simon Parfitt; Sylvia Peglar; Craig Williams; Chris Stringer

PLoS ONE 9(2): e88329

Published in 2014

Early Pleistocene human occupation at the edge of the boreal zone in northwest Europe

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Simon Parfitt; Nick Ashton; Simon Lewis; Richard L. Abel; Russell G. Coope

Nature 466, pages 229–33

Published in 2010

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