Continuing excavations at the site of Happisburgh (Norfolk) have uncovered the earliest hominin footprints in Europe, dated to between 0.78 and 1ma years ago. The site is located on the eastern coast of England, which makes archaeological excavation at the site difficult due to the constant incoming tide and coastal erosion. The team were able…
Africa is famous as the cradle of humanity, with the focus of palaeoanthropological research relating to Australopithecus, Paranthropus or early Homo firmly centred on the rich record of the East African Rift Valley as well as South Africa. Much of the research within the Rift Valley has concentrated so far on the large exposures to the…
Many studies into Palaeolithic diet, both traditional zooarchaeological analysis and isotope studies, emphasise the importance of meat to past hominin diet. However, these frequently encounter the problem of explaining how these past communities overcame problems related to the consumption of large quantities of meat. Whilst it is one of the worst kept secrets in Palaeolithic archaeology…
For Palaeolithic archaeologists, assessing the language capacity of any extinct hominin lineage is hard, and really only possible through the analysis of directly preserved remains (hyoid bones) or indirectly through material-culture expressions. The discovery of numerous hyoid bones from various sites has continued to fuel the debate about the language capacities of many of our…
The movement of hominins out of a particular region into different areas, to which they are not necessarily adapted, is a topic familiar to Palaeolithic research for all regions and periods. In northwest Europe this topic has received a lot of interest, particularly related to both the initial occupation of Britain and subsequent re-occupation during…
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