Past event
Traces of humans in the Ice Age landscapes of southern England Professor Martin Bates, University of Wales
Professor Martin Bates, University of Wales reviews the evidence for the earliest people in southern England.
Evidence of early human occupation in southern England began to appear in the mid-19th century and by 1900 a number of sites were known in an area of the country south of a line between the Severn and the Trent. Towards the end of the 20th century significant changes in our understanding of this record came about through new excavations at existing sites and the discovery of new sites such as Boxgrove, Pakefield and Happisburgh. Today we have a record that spans perhaps 1 million years of intermittent activity that is controlled in part by the major changes in climate and where the contemporary landscape was dramatically different to that of today. Despite the progress in understanding this record the traces of the humans themselves is still thin on the ground and many, major, challenges still face the Palaeolithic archaeologist of the 21st century.