Who were the first humans to reach the British Isles?

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When pondering the challenging environments that humans have managed to inhabit, our thoughts often drift to extreme locales: the Sahara Desert, the Arctic tundra, and the lofty Himalayas. The British Isles, while not as hostile as these regions, presented significant hurdles for ancient peoples.

This reality struck me when I encountered a September study detailing some of the oldest evidence of hominin habitation in Britain. The occupation in question dates back over 700,000 years—a mere blink in time when considering how early hominins ventured out of Africa. For example, these pioneering explorers quickly made their way to places like Indonesia yet were much slower to reach Britain.

Let’s outline some statistics for clarity. Hominins existed in Africa as far back as 6 or 7 million years ago. However, the earliest widely acknowledged hominin evidence outside Africa has been traced to approximately 1.8 million years ago, at Dmanisi in Georgia, uncovering remains of Homo erectus. It appears these early specimens of our genus were amongst the first to embark on wider travels, reaching Java in Indonesia.

In contrast, all findings of hominins in Britain are confined to the last million years, representing a delay of several hundred thousand years.

This delay could be even more pronounced considering that some researchers believe hominins ventured outside Africa significantly earlier. At Xihoudu in China, stone tools have been discovered in river sediment dating back to 2.43 million years ago. Similarly, artefacts from Shangchen, on a Chinese plateau, have been dated to 2.12 million years ago. In the past five years, I have written about ancient tools from Jordan that might be over 2 million years old, alongside artefacts from India that potentially date back to 2.6 million years ago. Each of these findings is subject to debate, primarily centered on whether these items are indeed human-crafted tools or merely natural rocks emulating those forms due to animal actions or fluvial processes. However, these findings keep accumulating, leading me to think that more definitive evidence may arise soon.

Regardless, it appears that it took our ancient forebears a considerable time to settle in Britain.

Farewell azure skies

Alternatively, they might have arrived very early, taken one glance at the environment, and retreated without any enduring legacy. While Britain’s climate can be characterized as mild—rarely experiencing extreme heat or cold—the perpetual gloom and constant rainfall constitute a unique set of challenges.

My memory of discussing the British weather with Nina Jablonski at Pennsylvania State University remains vivid. She noted how Britain has a “severely low and highly seasonal UV regime.” In other words, it’s remarkably cloudy. It’s challenging to find any location beyond the polar extremes that receives less sunlight than Britain.

This evaluation encompasses our current climate; historically, it has been colder. Since the Pleistocene Epoch began 2.58 million years ago, the climate has fluctuated, alternating between cold glacial phases and warmer interglacials. For the past 11,700 years, we have been in a warmer interglacial, but during glacial periods, polar ice sheets expanded and engulfed a significant part of Britain.

Evidence concerning ancient humans in Britain has largely been retrieved from warmer interglacial epochs; however, recent research broadens this understanding.

The focus shifts to excavations at Old Park, located near Canterbury in southeast England. In the 1920s, a quarry named Fordwich Pit at Old Park yielded countless stone implements. Since 2020, Alastair Key of the University of Cambridge has been spearheading recent excavations in the region.

In 2022, Key and his research team revealed initial discoveries, describing 112 artefacts unearthed from levels dating back at least 513,000-570,000 years. My colleague Jason Arunn Murugesu covered this news, emphasizing that the artefacts were “the oldest known of their kind in the UK and among the earliest in Europe.”

Three years later, Key’s team expanded their work and uncovered even older layers containing stone artefacts. Evidence suggests that hominins occupied the site between 773,000 and 607,000 years ago.

For context, a warm interglacial period unfolded from roughly 715,000 to 675,000 years ago, before and after which the climate turned cold.

Additional recent layers were also uncovered, containing artefacts dated to 542,000 and 437,000 years ago, both of which fall squarely within cold glacial phases.

The findings imply that hominins inhabited and returned to Old Park multiple times, even during the coldest periods of British weather.

Heading North

To put this in broader perspective, Old Park doesn’t house the oldest traces of hominins in British territory, although it’s nearly there. Furthermore, the oldest verified evidence may no longer exist.

In 2013, researchers strolling along a beach at Happisburgh in eastern England discovered 49 footprints. These had been preserved in silt layers, revealed by severe erosion. Unfortunately, the footprints washed away shortly afterward, but archaeologists managed to record and confirm them as dating between 850,000 and 950,000 years ago.

Happisburgh has produced stone tools dating back over 780,000 years, and the nearby Pakefield site has artefacts around 700,000 years old. Nevertheless, the oldest-known hominin bones—unlike artefacts—were uncovered in Boxgrove, southeast England, dating to just 500,000 years old.

These locations represent only a fraction, as the archaeological record remains incomplete. In 2023, Key and his colleague Nick Ashton estimated that hominins may have reached northern Europe as early as 1.16 million years ago based on the fragmented record. With the recent discoveries from Old Park, this date may potentially be revised further back.

Here’s where it gets intriguing: who were these ancient populations that managed to endure in Britain’s often dreary climate?

Given that Homo erectus appears to be the initial homintin species to migrate from Africa, one might suspect they were responsible. However, there is scant evidence of their presence in Europe. There exist stone tools from Korolevo in Ukraine that date back to 1.4 million years ago, but no hominin remains to corroborate. Similarly, in March, I reported on fragmentary facial bones found in northern Spain, dated between 1.1 and 1.4 million years ago. Their discoverers have tentatively categorized them as “Homo aff. erectus”—indicating a possible link to H. erectus but lacking absolute certainty.

Northern Spain was also home to another species, known as Homo antecessor, recognizable from one cave, and believed to have existed between 772,000 and 949,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, Boxgrove’s hominins likely represented a different species identified as Homo heidelbergensis. Their classification is complex: they inhabited Europe several hundred thousand years ago, but unambiguous remains attributing to this species are sparse.

Understanding the relationships between these species, as well as their connections to us and later groups like Neanderthals, remains an enigma. Consequently, the identities of the earliest Britons remain obscured, shrouded in a veil of mystery—a fitting metaphor for their hidden existence.