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7 million years BP
Our Earliest History | In the year 2002, the history of early man was pushed back another two million years, when a discovery of a skull fossil was made in Chad, central Africa. It represents a new species to science, called Sahelanthropus, but the individual is known as Toumai. It is between six and seven million years old. The site is over 1,000 miles from the east Africa sites where most discoveries had been made hitherto. The team was from Poitiers University, led by Michel Brunet. African fossil hunters have become extremely skilled at spotting fragments on the surface, and the original find was by Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye. It is not yet known whether this new species walked upright. | 5 million years BP
| In the Pliocene geological period, at the end of the era called the Tertiary by geologists, an early form of proto-man called Australopithecus anamensis evolved in Africa. Before the year 2002, this was the earliest known fossils of man.
This evolutionary branch of upright ape survived until 500,000 years ago, overlapping Homo habilis and then Homo erectus. Australopithecus thus pre-dates the start of the Lower Paleolithic by 3 million years, but survived into the first million years of that period.
By this date the dinosaurs had already been extinct for sixty million years. | | 4,000,000 BP | The oldest Australopithecine is known as A.anamensis.
At about 4 million years ago it was joined by A.afarensis which lived for about one million years. | | 3,800,000 BP | A.anamensis disappeared from the fossil record. |
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| 3,600,000 BP | Two sets of fossilised footprints have ben found from this date, preserved in fossil volcanic ash at Laetoli in northern Tanzania, discovered by Mary Leakey in 1976. Most importantly, these show a hominid walking on two legs, and since 1978 most opinion assigns these footprints to Australopithecus afarensis. They were under 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall and although they could walk with both hands free, there is no evidence of stone tool use. Their brains were about one-third of modern size at this time, so walking upright seems to have pre-dated the development of intelligence. One theory is that it was developed as a cooling mechanism to minimise the impact of the overhead sun and make contact with cooling breezes. | | 3,500,000 BP | A.afarensis was joined in Africa by A.Africanus. | | 3,200,000 BP | The most complete fossils of Australopithecus afarensis date from this time, and were found in Ethiopia in an area called the Afar Triangle. One individual was 40 percent complete, now known as Lucy, discovered in 1974. A year later, a family group of 13 individuals was found in the Afar Triangle. | | 2,900,000 BP | A.afarensis disappears from the fossil record, leaving A.africanus to survive another 400,000 years. | | 2,500,000 BP | Australopithecus africanus had disappeared by now, but around this time began a greater diversity of hominid species. Classification of these differences has been very difficult because of the very few fossils found, mostly in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania since 1951. Homo rudolfensis and Australopithecus aethiopithecus are names assigned to the species arising at this time. | 2,400,000 BP
The Lower Paleolithic | The Lower Paleolithic or Old Stone Age era began when Homo habilis arose in Africa alongside Australopithecus boisei. By this time, several hominid species were co-existing, but stone tools were now coming into use. These stones litter the layers from this time in the Olduvai gorge, and are attributed to Homo habilis or "handy man". These tools were used, we think, to widen the dietary possibilities at a time when climate change was reducing the established range of vegetable foodstuffs.
Many scientists believe that sudden deteriorations in the climate caused early man-like creatures to turn to meat and to dig for food. Stronger tools became a necessity for survival. This era is dated as lasting until about 200,000 BC, through the time of Homo Erectus and Archaic Homo sapiens, the latter now usually called Homo heidelbergensis. | 1,800,000 BP
The Lower Pleistocene
of the Quaternary | The geological Quaternary period began with the lower Pleistocene sequence of rock deposits. By now the Lower Paleolithic age of man had become well established in Africa and Homo habilis, the first species designated as man, or Homo, was the tool maker in Africa.
Australopithecus still roamed there as well, but by now was represented by A.robustus and A.boisei. | 1,500,000 BP
Homo erectus
arose in Africa. | By this time, Homo erectus seems to have replaced H.habilis in Africa. Since these early times, Homo erectus was already using paint such as ochre. It is an iron ore used from earliest times for body paint to disguise the scent in the hunt. Hand axes, scrapers and cleavers were made from flint. | | 1,000,000 BP | Homo erectus left Africa to colonise Europe. They probably used wooden boats, starting with rafts made from logs.
The Straits between Gibraltar and Morocco are only a ten mile sea journey and the far side can be seen with the naked eye. Remains of stone tools are similar on each side of the straits and different for those in Eastern Europe.
As long ago as 1871, fossils which we call Java man, were found by Eugene Dubois in Java. These are nowadays attributed to Homo erectus and could be as old as 1.8 million years. | 700,000 BP
The Middle Pleistocene | The geological deposits known as Lower Pleistocene ended and the Middle Pleistocene series began.
To archeologists, this is still the Lower Paleolithic time and Homo erectus seemed to have spread throughout the old world. In northern Spain, bones and stone tools have been found dating back 800,000 years at Gran Dolina.
The Quanternary geology of Britain is well represented in Norfolk and Suffolk and has been extensively studied. Because of this, many of the geological layers are named after East Anglian sites. These names also came to represent the time periods associated with the layers. Thus the warm conditions which resulted in beds of freshwater deposits associated with finds near Cromer have been called The Cromerian Warm Period.
Field geologists gave the following names to the Quaternary stages which they thought they could identify from the types of soil deposits discovered. The oldest stage came first and these broadly cover the time of human occupation: - Cromerian Stage: mainly warm conditions;
- Anglian Stage: mainly cool conditions, with Norfolk and Suffolk under an ice sheet;
- Hoxnian Stage: mainly warm conditions;
- Wolstonian Stage: cool, ice may have reached North Norfolk;
- Ipswichian Stage: warm;
- Devensian Stage: cool, ice may have reached North Norfolk; and
- Flandrian Stage: warm - this stage extends to the present day.
By the late 20th century, other methods were examined to investigate the past. Oxygen isotopes have been examined in marine fossils found in cores drilled out of the ocean beds. Similar cores taken from ancient ice layers deep in Antarctica have also been examined for the higher numbers of lighter oxygen isotopes which indicate colder periods. These results have indicated much greater fluctuations in climate than had been visible in the field, showing that even in glacial times, these stages themselves had warmer periods, and the interglacial warmer times also varied considerably. Matching the isotope data with the named stages is not always easy, either. So the dates given below should be treated with caution.
| | 600,000 BP | A period of wider climate fluctuation took place at this time and there were probably "ice-ages" before the Anglian stage identified by field geologists. It is theorised that the Homo erectus evolved into a new form more able to cope with adverse conditions. He grew stronger and his brain grew larger, and after this date, human remains in Europe are assigned the name of Homo heidelbergensis. In the past they were also known as archaic Homo sapiens.
It is likely that with Homo heidelbergensis now spread over Africa, Asia and Europe, local populations would have evolved different characteristics. | | c.500,000 BP | At this time, early in the Middle Pleistocene period, Britain was joined to the continent and a giant early version of the River Thames flowed north-eastwards over much of South Suffolk laying down some ancient river gravels. A major tributary, called the Bytham River, flowed from the Midlands, across the Fens and joined the Thames near Bury St Edmunds. Its gravels included red quartzite pebbles and they are visible at Mildenhall and Icklingham.
Early man may have been present in our area by this time, but the Ice Ages would probably have swept away the bulk of any evidence.
In 1986, a small gravel pit was investigated at Stanchils Farm at Hengrave, and the pre-glacial deposits categorised. The site seemed to illustrate the existence of Hengrave and Ingham sand and gravels which originated in the Midlands, transported here by the Bytham River, and deposited as it reached the Thames. The Kesgrave series of sands and gravels are thought to have been brought here from Southern England by the Thames on its course northwards at the time. A flint which could show evidence of working by man was found in these early deposits which could be up to 200,000 years earlier than the date attributed here.
The earliest remaining physical evidence of man in the form of bones in Britain comes from sites like Boxgrove in West Sussex, excavated in 1993. Remains here have been attributed to Homo heidelbergensis. He butchered animals with flint hand-axes. Remnants of deer, lion, bear, wild horse and rhino were also identified. | c.474,000 BP
The Anglian Glaciation | The Anglian Glacial epoch began, and probably lasted to about 427,000 BP.
Some geologists believe that the change from warm to cold periods can take as little as 50 to 100 years. This was the biggest of all the glaciations as far as the UK is concerned, and some authorities date it as much later than this, perhaps from 350,000 BP to 200,000 BP.
This glaciation arrived from the north-west and the ice sheet reached the coast south of Lowestoft and aligned itself roughly from there to Ipswich at its edge. It also covered the Midlands and reached south of Essex. The River Thames was pushed nearly 100 miles south to somewhere near its modern course. | | 450,000 BP | Rivers created by melting glaciers flowed across East Anglia. One such system crossed today's Elveden and Barnham areas, and considerable stratified evidence has survived the jumbling up process often caused by glaciations.
When the ice melted it left behind our boulder clays and the melt water carved out the estuaries of the Waveney, Deben, Gipping and Stour. Typical deposits include the Lowestoft Till found at the lower levels of Elveden Brickyard Pit.
Man was present in Britain at this time, even if he was probably living further south.
In 1911, a wooden spear was found at Clacton on Sea dated to 450,000 years ago. It is the earliest wooden object yet discovered in this country. | 427,000 BP
The Hoxnian
Inter-Glacial Period | The Anglian Ice Age had largely receded and the Hoxnian Interglacial, or warmer period began and lasted until about 364,000 BP.
Recovery from glaciation would start with micro-organisms building up in the watery bogs left by melting ice sheets. Insects and worms then appear, followed by dwarf birches. After a few thousand years the fish and small mammals appear, and at Elveden they include roach, rudd, stickleback and pike. At Barnham, a terrapin shell was found and once small mammals like the water voles have moved in, their remains can sometimes be dated by minute evolutionary changes. The Hoxnian layers at Elveden Brickyard Pit are silts and clays up to six metres thick over the Lowestoft Till.
Various warm and cool or icy periods followed, with vegetation spreading and contracting at various times as conditions changed. Lake sediments were laid down, in warmer periods, including some found at Sicklesmere.
These periods each covered hundreds or thousands of years. | | 400,000 BP | In Britain generally, Paleolithic man may have pre-dated the Anglian Glaciation, but the earliest Suffolk evidence appears to be from Elveden and Barnham, dated at the end of the Anglian Glaciation.
Following excavation in the late 1990s it is clear that one of Britain's major paleolithic sites is at Elveden, very near to the Center Parcs holiday village. Victorian brick makers first dug these pits for clay. |
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| Sites showing evidence of human activity dating back as far as this time are extremely rare in Britain. The clay pits of Elveden and Barnham are about five miles apart, and both contain evidence that man was knapping flints here at the time. There is also evidence that both those sites were on the banks of an ancient river system. One tool from Elveden was a flint "spokeshove" for stripping bark and shaping wooden objects including spears. More than 200 flint flakes were found and these seemed to be two distinct layers of human activity.
At Barnham, there are similar lower layers to Elveden, but upper layers contain evidence of elephant, rhino, lion, bear, aurochs, deer and wild boar. At this time the climate here was several degrees warmer than today's conditions. Also at this time the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros lived in Britain.
As early as 1797, Hoxne near Eye in East Suffolk became a site famous for remains of flint tools of this period. The site gives its name to the Hoxnian Interglacial period. It was here that the great antiquity of man and his flint tools was first recognised in 1797 by John Frere.
The Lower Paleolithic period has left evidence of man in our area at Bury, Icklingham, Kentford, High Lodge, Elveden, Lakenheath, Brandon, Santon Downham and Barnham. High Lodge, Mildenhall is among the oldest archaeological sites in Europe with many stone tools discovered in the 1960's. These sites are on the river valleys and light soils of the Breckland. Warren Hill at Mildenhall has also yielded many stone hand axes.
Wooden objects have survived in swamps in Schoningen in Germany, discovered around 1996. They were spears, carefully built and designed by men now known as Homo heidelbergensis.
This reminds us that stone is just the only evidence generally which has survived. Most of their tools were probably wooden, and their technology may have been based more on wood, plant and animal material than upon stone. | 364,000 BP
The Wolstonian Glaciation | It has been suggested recently that the Hoxnian Interglacial or warmer period drew to a close at this time.
This would herald in another cool period, known as The Wolstonian Glaciation. The ice sheet stopped somewhere short of North Norfolk but permanently frozen ground conditions would have resulted throughout East Anglia. This period lasted until about 126,000 BP. | | 300,000 BP | Very important remains from this date were found in 1997 at The Pit of Bones in the Atapuerca cavern, near Burgos in northern Spain. They comprise evidence from the remains of 32 individuals who somehow arrived together deep underground. They display facial characteristics indicating change from the classic Homo heidelbergensis shapes. From this evidence it would seem that signs of Homo neanderthalis were now evolving in Europe. There is some evidence that fire was used and controlled at this time. | | 250,000 BP | A new species of hominid first appeared around this time in Europe despite or, possibly, because of, the fiercely cold conditions of the Wolstonian ice-age. They had evolved large noses to warm their inhaled breath, rounded bodies to retain heat and powerful physiques. Most amazingly, their brains were slightly larger than those of modern man. Scientists refer to them as Homo neanderthalis. Neanderthal man gets his name from the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf in German, where his remains were first identified in 1956. Homo neanderthalis means Neander valley man. A further complete skeleton was found in a cave at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in Southern France and published in 1911. This skeleton became known as the Old Man of La Chapelle.
In the warmer eastern Europe and western Asia, Neanderthal man was less stocky and more lightly built. Unlike earlier hominids, Neanderthal man buried his dead in graves, often in caves or crevasses.
Over the next 200,000 years Neanderthal man would evolve a complex society, develop new tools and produce art-objects with no practical purpose but to convey symbolic meaning. | | 200,000 BP | The Middle Paleolithic Period began and lasted until about 38,000 BC.
In Africa, south of the growing Sahara desert, Homo sapiens first appeared and would be restricted to that Continent for another 100,000 years.
In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, this time is characterised by Neanderthal man who dominated these continents throughout this period. Neanderthal has sometimes been portrayed as something less than modern man, but his culture was refined and developed over more than a hundred thousand years down to 40,000 BP. Traces remained of him as late as 30,000 BP. | | 130,000 BP | One of the most important finds of early fossils of Homo sapiens was made by Richard Leakey in 1967 in the Omo-Kibish region of Ethiopia. In 1967, before this discovery, it was believed that Homo sapiens was only 60,000 years old and had evolved from Homo neanderthalis. | 126,000 BP
The Ipswichian
Interglacial Period | The Ipswichian warmer period began and remains of hippo and pond tortoise have been found dated to this period. | | 120,000 BP | Meanwhile, in Africa, Homo Sapiens was evolving.
Further evidence of early Homo sapiens dated to this time has been found on the Klasies River in South Africa. Stone implements found in their caves were surprisingly advanced for this date.
Geological deposits of the Upper Pleistocene series start at this date as the Middle Pleistocene ended. | | 100,000 BP | Around this time we think that Homo sapiens was expanding out of Africa into the Middle East.
Remains of both Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis have been found in the caves of Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel.
Both species seem quite similar in their hunting and gathering practices at this time, but we do not know if they occupied the same places at the same times, or if they interacted in any way. | | 90,000 BP | At Border Cave in South Africa Homo sapiens remains have been dated to this time.
From the same time period, remains have been discovered in Katanda in Zaire including superbly carved 90,000 year old bone harpoons and knives. Work of this quality had previously been unknown earlier than 40,000 years ago from Cro-Magnon man in Europe.
Homo sapiens and his Cro-Magnon descendants can therefore be traced back into an African genesis. | 70,000 BP
The Devensian
Glacial Period | The Devensian cooler period began around this time.
In the advance of the ice sheet down from the north, the ice may again have reached the North Norfolk coast. The ice probably advanced and retreated sporadically, but did not seem to reach its peak until around the period from 24,000 BP to 15,000 BP. | | 60,000 BP | In Israel, a lot of evidence survives from this period. Neanderthal man was being pushed southwards into the area by the Devensian Ice Age. Homo sapiens was migrating out of Africa northwards.
Homo sapiens did not restrict himself to a known range as much as Neanderthal, and may have been able to exploit a wider number of possible terrains. If Homo sapiens encountered Neanderthal man around this period in the eastern Mediterranean, they would have found a highly developed culture based on 200,000 years of history.
Some Neanderthal graves included objects such as a deers jawbone or flowers and certainly this was the case in Israeli and Iraqui discoveries dated to 60,000 years ago. Other evidence reveals that they cared for injured or sick relatives or companions. Their stone tools were more complex than earlier hominids and they built fires in their shelters. Stone blades, stone flakes with sawtooth edges and a side scraper were all new tools invented and developed by Neanderthals. They also made pendants to wear on strings.
At this time the culture of Homo sapiens was still not that different from Neanderthal. | | 40,000 BP | The Hoxnian Man seems to have died out around this time. This disappearance of Neanderthal man seems to have happened throughout their range over a period of the next 10,000 years.
The first Homo sapiens to appear in Europe have been called Cro-Magnon man, named after the Cro-Magnon cave above the town of Les Eyzies in France. Remains were first discovered there in 1868. Homo sapiens had arrived in Europe from Africa where they had first appeared about 160,000 years earlier. For the next 10,000 years Homo sapiens would come to dominate Europe and Neanderthals would disappear from the fossil record.
From 40,000 BP onwards there was an explosion in the cultural development of Homo sapiens. The use of fireplaces became widespread and were very necessary to a species evolved in Africa and only recently left there. He had spread across the world, as far as Australia and suddenly his art became something new, his implements began to develop and he began building homes. He developed societies and began to trade over wide areas.
The Early Upper Paleolithic period began in Europe, associated with Homo sapiens.
We have little evidence of man in Suffolk at this time, apart from possible hunting parties crossing the land-bridge from Europe. The climate was like modern Siberia in Suffolk at this time. | | 35,000 BP | Castelmerle Valley in the Dordogne was the commercial heart of the region. There was a bead making factory using woolly mammoth ivory from Czechoslavakia and soapstone from even further east. The beads were woven into the clothing and there were specialised "factories" making one part of the process. It is believed that the standard 6 mm beads were produced by women. Similar beads have been found as far away as Russia. | | 32,000 BP | In 1994 the Grotte Chauvet cave paintings were discovered in a cavern in the Ardeche gorge in southeastern France. Over 300 animals were depicted with great originality and flair. Not only was this to prove to be one of the best and most highly developed examples of ancient cave painting, but also it was the oldest ever found, being dated between 31,000 and 33,000 years old. Previously Cro-Magnon art was reckoned to begin about 25,000 years ago in a fairly primitive style and improve to the most recent creations of 11,000 BP. These 1994 finds show that human creativity and ability at this time was equal to ours, despite the 30,000 year time difference. | | 30,000 BP | The last remaining evidence of Neanderthal man is in southern Spain dated at about 30,000 years ago. They may have survived in other isolated parts of eastern Europe as well, but in the main they had been replaced by Homo sapiens.
This seems to coincide with the advancing height of the Devensian ice age, the last of the great ice ages. The foothills of the Pyrenees were a great centre for ice-age hunter gatherers in southern France at this time. | | 26,000 BP | Dolne Vestonice ice age settlement was a wide flood plain valley with woolly mammoths roaming the area. This area has been called the New York of the Upper Palolithic period. An extremely early ceramics industry existed here. Amazingly, evidence of textile production has been found from impressions in fossilised dried mud. Here in Eastern Europe, fine cloths were woven, and ropes and nets produced from plant fibres. Their hair was braided and they made woven hats and woven cloth. The venus figurines also show braided hair and clothing. | | 20,000 BP | Homo sapiens were now the only species of hominid left on Earth, physically the same as ourselves.
Much of the North Sea was land. | | c.18,000 BP | The Last Glaciation was at its height. Today we refer to it as the Devensian Stage. This glaciation did not reach further south than the North Norfolk coast, but it locked up so much water that sea level fell by up to 60 metres.
Stone Age man would have adapted to these changes as the flora and fauna he depended upon also changed. | | c.15,000 BP | The ice had disappeared around this time from Southern Britain, but the North was still under the ice sheet. Britain was probably a treeless Tundra, but was joined to the continent.
The Lasceaux Cave in France contains a picture of a falling horse engraved on a curved rock surface dating from this time. The skill and imagination shown caused many experts to doubt that they could be really this old as they used techniques such as perspective, lost again until the Middle Ages. Picasso said, "We have invented nothing" after he visited these caves.
Peche Merle Cave contains complex horse paintings covered with black and red dots. Some animals were first drawn 10,000 years before they were finally over drawn by later artists. Painting was like prayer and these were religious practices. | | 14,000 BP | The Mas d'Azil tunnel in the Pyrenees at Ariege in France is one of the most important ice-age sites in the world. Huge numbers of artefacts have been found there, including an antler spear thrower, ornamented by a carved ibex. This was an important innovation to improve the range and power of spears for the hunt.
At this time it is believed that groups of about 20 to 25 people worked together, but came together in the Pyrenees foothills for trade, barter, celebration, and possibly for religious purposes. | | 13,000 BP | Pergouset Cave is very restricted in access and could not hold large numbers of people but contains superb drawings in four "rooms", some with fantasy animals that do not represent real animals. | | c.11,000 BC | The Glacial Ice had melted in North Britain by this time, but much of the world's water was still frozen and so sea levels remained lower than today. | | 10,000 BC | A piece of engraved bone was made in central France with 1,000 engraved marks for time recording and predicting the phases of the moon. This piece is 4 inches long and could apparently be used to calculate everything that Stonehenge was to do. | | c.9000 BC | The Late Glacial Period began and the Mesolithic period is the name given to human remains from after this date up to the time farming began. | c.8300 BC
The Flandrian
warm period | This date is generally reckoned to herald the start of the warmer Flandrian period, which we remain in today. Today's post glacial warm period began quite rapidly at this time and the treeless British landscape was gradually replaced by trees colonising from the south east. The first forests were of birch, an arctic tree, pollinated by wind as it was still too cold for insects in Britain.
Early Mesolithic (hunter-fisher peoples) sites believed to date from this period have been identified at Home Heath, Lackford.
In 1998 the skull of an aurochs was dredged from the River Lark at West Row, dating from around this time. This was a very large specimen with a 90 cm span across the horns. Peat deposits were thought to have preserved it, together with cut marks attributed to butchery by the local inhabitants before eating it. It stood over 2 metres tall, larger than modern cattle. The aurochs died out during the Bronze Age.
In the early mesolithic period, Britain was joined to Europe by a land bridge, probably at modern day Denmark. The North Sea coastline was somewhere north of the Dogger Bank. | | 8000 BC | The Nicaux Cave in the French Pyranees is another significant ice-age location. The great cave complexes of the Pyranees were not used as homes or as art galleries. They contain vast numbers of cave paintings but often they are virtually inaccessible. They were probably painted for religious purposes for ceremonies and mystical practices, but were detailed and precise.
A site called Asiklihoyuk in central Anatolia in Turkey shows that mud built homes were being made at this early date in this region. Most remarkably, this small settlement had beads made of copper, not only cold-worked but also subject to heat treatment. This evidence pre-dates the usually accepted date for the copper age by about 5,000 years. | | c.7500 BC | In Britain, Pine trees began to replace the arctic birch, followed by hazel, elm, oak and alder. | | 7000 BC | Remains of a town have been found in Turkey which was built from 7,000 BC to 5,500 BC at Catalhoyuk, 32 miles from Konya. It was first excavated from 1961 to 1965, and further excavations undertaken from 1995 onwards. These people still roamed the countryside for food, but had settled in one place and began to build homes of mud brick, closely clustered together so that there were very few alleyways. Access was through the roof and the population was as high as 10,000 and the town flourished for 1,500 years. Evidence was found of trade goods from hundreds of miles away, but the copper work found at Asikli is absent here. | | c.6500 BC | In the Late Mesolithic period, around this date the sea rose as the ice caps melted and retreated and Britain became an island when the sea broke through. The Suffolk coastline was several kilometres east of where it is now.
Sites thought to date from the Late Mesolithic include Wangford, Lakenheath and West Stow. The red deer was hunted by arrows fitted with small flint barbs.
Mixed oak forest was the dominant form of landscape. Small leaved lime trees had arrived in Britain and the warmer Atlantic period lasted until 3,000 BC. The lime is an insect-pollinated tree and so we know that the British climate could now support an insect population. | | 6000 BC | The so called "wildwood" was probably developed to its fullest extent by now, following the last glaciation.
Man needed new tools and techniques to cope with the forests of Britain. |
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Neolithic polished flints
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4,600 BC
The Neolithic Period
or New Stone Age | This time is known as the Neolithic period or New Stone Age, and the first farmers came on the scene. Some of them settled in the Lark Valley. Forest clearance was an essential skill before settlements could be established.
The tools from this time are characterised by polished stone axes, and leaf shaped arrowheads of flint. Not all the tools were polished, and included flint as well as stone axes.
Axes from the Lake District have been found in North West Suffolk, and from Cornwall in South East Suffolk.
This suggests two separate trade routes in operation and possibly two separate peoples in Suffolk. One was the Icknield Way along the Chalk ridge, connecting East Anglia with Wessex and beyond. | | 4,000 BC | From 4000 BC to 3000 BC is a period when the elm tree had a great decline and remains of nettles and plantains show an increase. This is probably the first large scale impact of agriculture on the Wildwood and its decline continues to this day. Elms like to grow on the edge of woodlands and are likely to be the first to be felled in a clearance. Nettles and plantains tend to flourish where man has his home.
The treeless Breckland probably has its origins in Neolithic tree clearances from about 3700 BC. | | 3,600 BC | Malta and Gozo were thought to have been colonised by early man from Sicily around 5000 BC. By 3500 BC the first stone temples of the Maltese archipelago were built, pre-dating the Egyptian pyramids by a thousand years. Although copper was used on the mainland, no metal tools have been found on Malta, and these elaborate temples were all the work of Neolithic stone tools. Some 23 temples were built and 4 remain recognisably intact today as the world's earliest free standing stone buildings. This civilisation flourished until about 2,300 BC, possibly because by then the resources of the island were exhausted. | | 3,500 BC | A Neolithic farmstead of about 3500 BC has been found at Hurst Fen, Mildenhall. As well as expertly worked leaf shaped arrowheads, the newly invented pottery has been found with round bases and decoration. Saddle querns and rubbers to grind emmer-wheat and barley were also found. | | 3,200 BC | Studies centring on the mere at Diss suggest that in 3200 BC a virulent strain of Dutch Elm disease wiped out thousands of elm trees. This mirrors the similar event in the late 20th century. |
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| 3100 BC | In 1991, a freeze-dried body dating from between 3350 BC and 3100 BC was discovered below a melting glacier in the Otztal Alps on the border between Italy and Austria at 3210 metres above sea level. He became known as Otzi and is the oldest corpse to have survived in the world, pre-dating the Egyptian mummies. He seems to have died of exposure, but enough of his equipment survives to tell us that he wore clothes.
He had a rainproof cloak of woven grass, goat hide leggings and jerkin, and a bearskin hat. He carried an axe, dagger and a bow. His axe was copper which had been moulded and then beaten. It was fixed to a yew tree haft with leather strips and birch bark resin. His bow was made of yew and he had a leather quiver of arrows. His dagger had a flint blade and an ash-wood handle. In total his equipment was made with 18 different types of wood, indicating a sophisticated woodworking tradition. In a leather pouch he had flints and the tinder fungus for making fire, but he also had containers in which to carry live embers wrapped in leaves. His body had simple tattoo markings which correspond to acupuncture points but were probably stimulated by pressure, not by needles. He died at the age of 46. | | 3000 BC | New Stone Age man settled quite densely around Mildenhall and one form of their pottery is called Mildenhall ware.
Meanwhile in the west country at Stanton Drew a massive wooden henge of concentric circles of wooden posts, twice as big as Stonehenge was to be, was erected.
Causewayed enclosures from this period have been identified at Kedington and Fornham All Saints from aerial observation of crop marks. At Fornham a 'cursus', or processional way, has been identified, together with circular enclosures or henge-monuments.
Several thousand implements were found in a single little valley at Icklingham, and perhaps these people arrived up the Icknield Way from Southern England and Northern France.
By contrast, East Suffolk is thought to have been colonised more from the Low Countries and Denmark and Germany up the coastal estuaries. | c.2700 BC
The Copper Age | The first metal tools of copper had appeared by now in Britain, but note that flint was still important for another thousand years.
In the Late Neolithic period there was a major industrial site at Grimes Graves until about 2000 BC. Some 360 shafts of flint mines have been located.
The Cambridge Museum of Archaeology holds two wooden bows dating to around 2700 BC. These are the oldest bows found in England. One of them, called the Mere Heath Bow had a draw strength of around 100 lbs, making using it a substantial task.
A round neolithic house has been found in Dorset which had its own henge adjacent, and is dated to this time. | | 2670 BC | The first pyramid was built in Egypt at Saqqara. It was markedly stepped, built in a number of stages out of stone, and looked quite unlike the smooth sided Great Pyramid built about a hundred years later. | | 2589 BC | The Great Pyramid at Gizeh was begun, and thought to have taken until 2566 BC to build.
Around this time, Stonehenge was erected in Wiltshire apparently based upon the design of the wooden henges erected for the previous 500 years. It was probably started several hundred years earlier, and enlarged and developed over this period, and work probably continued as new ideas arose. | 2200 BC
The Bronze Age reaches Britain | Bronze technology seems to have reached Britain from Europe in about 2200 BC, having originated earlier in the Middle East. Bronze is commonly an alloy of 9 parts copper and 1 part tin.
Gold working appeared in Britain at the same time. For a thousand years gold and bronze were the only two metals in use. Silver did not appear until the Iron Age.
The earliest bronze weapons were flat headed axes which copied the shape of polished stone axes. These occur in the Beaker culture. | | c.2100 BC | Pots known as Beaker pottery dates from the early Bronze Age, as do many round barrows. For many years these people were referred to as the Beaker People. Some 825 round barrows are known in Suffolk by 1999, including How Hill at Icklingham. Settlements are still in river valleys and on the light soil areas.
By this time Salisbury Plain was a vast centre of burials and sacred sites, temples and henges. Stonehenge was at its centre. Bronze axes were used to clear woodland from the Plain to produce the open grassland landscape that we see today. |
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| 2050 BC | In 1999 a startling discovery of a wooden henge monument of a "family" size was made on the sea-shore at Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. A bronze axe head was found and attracted the finder's attention to a circle of wood stumps newly visible above the sand as the tide receded. After considerable difficulties the timbers were excavated and removed to Flag Fen for conservation and recording. The circle was six to seven paces across, surrounding an upturned tree stump of a 150 year old oak tree, with its roots pointing skyward. A supposed entrance faced the direction of the Mid-Winter sunset and the structure was thought to be a mortuary. It was dubbed sea-henge but was originally built not on the beach, but possibly in salt-marsh and the timbers were carbon dated to 2050 BC and 2049 BC, and had been worked by bronze axes and adzes.
A three dimensional laser scan of the 55 oak posts of the circle shows that at least 38 different bronze axes were used to cut and shape the timbers. Francis Pryor, the head of the Flag Fen archaeology centre has commented that "it is remarkable that this tiny community was able to lay hands on such a large number of tools only about 100 years after the knowledge of how to make bronze arrived in this country." This reveals an unexpected level of development and social organisation in these communities. |
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| 2000 BC | Grimes Graves was the site of a massive flint production industry at this time. It was probably yieling flints long before this date, but appears to have been at its busiest around 2000 BC. The mines covered an area of about 90 acres, and at least 500 shafts have now been found. There were also at least 1600 shallow pits from which we believe open cast methods extracted the shallower flint. The best flint was the what we now call the black floor flint, laid down in beds rather than the random nodules found throughout East Anglia. Some shafts descended 30 or 40 feet, or about 12 metres, with galleries linking shafts or radiating from them. Over 50,000 antler picks have been found, and there must have been a whole industry here of miners, tool makers, basket makers and a community which traded their products far and wide. | | 1700 BC | The so-called Wessex culture arose and produced bronze axes with decoration and flanged edges. Bronze daggers had rivetted handles and decorative pins were made. Elsewhere in Britain, change was less obvious.
A settlement has been found at West Row, Mildenhall dated between 1,700 and 1,500 BC, and one bronze age house was circular, some 16½ feet in diameter. Its inhabitants used pottery, worked flint, grew cereals and processed flax.
Elsewhere, several metalwork finds have come from Rymer Point. At Rymer Point there were a series of ponds, the only water in the area, and the ten parishes that joined here in medieval times possibly had origins in settlements and land claims as far back as this time.
At Grimstone End, in Pakenham, near Ixworth a single round ditch was revealed by aerial photography. It was excavated in 1953 to reveal the base of an early Bronze Age barrow, containing an urn with cremated bones. | | 1600 BC | A phase of the Bronze Age known as the Arreton Down tradition developed widely outside Wessex. Arreton Down axeheads had pronounced flanges, daggers had ribs along the blade, and tanged spearheads appeared. | | 1500 BC | The Acton Park phase of the Bronze Age is typified by a stopridge being added to the axeheads. Axes also had wings for better and more secure hafting and this type of axe is known as a palstave. Short swords with two rivet holes also typify this time. | | 1300 BC | Bronze objects were now being produced in greater diversity. Flanged palstaves continued but bronze sickles and even saw blades were being made. This period, now known as the Taunton Phase (in England, at least) included distinctive types of pin and coiled finger rings. | | 1,200 BC | Bronze metal work entered the Penard phase when European styles increasingly influenced those seen in Britain. Palstaves continued, but axe heads and spearheads were now produced with sockets, and more types of swordblades were made. | | 1,000 BC | The Wilburton phase of the Bronze Age produced more changes in style and metal alloys with many pieces of equestrian equipment and weaponry suggesting a developing warrior society. Short swords became more narrow bladed. Clearly they fought from horseback, as well as on foot. |
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| 900 BC | The next period of the Bronze Age is known as the Ewart Park phase and is the commonest type of material found today, frequently appearing in "founders' hoardes" of broken tools and casting scrap. | | 700 BC | The final British Bronze Age phase is known as Llyn Fawr from a find spot in Wales. It overlaps the first periods of the Iron Age. Many bronze objects with a high lead content from this period are thought to have been produced for votive or religious purposes, to be deposited in the earth or often in water.
Throughout the Bronze Age flint continued to be used, and in particular arrowheads were routinely made of flint. By this time people had developed sophisticated weapons such as bronze swords.
In this era a man might die of old age at 34 and women at 37, based on the average remains found in Suffolk Bronze Age barrows and graves. | | 700 BC on | Follow our history into the Iron Age |
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