By Thomas H. Maugh II
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES – Relatives of modern humans inhabited Britain at least 840,000 years ago, more than 100,000 years earlier than archaeologists previously believed, researchers report.
The find surprised scientists because most believed that the hominids, bred on the sweltering plains of Africa, could not readily survive in the colder climate of Ice Age Britain. Even though Britain was in the midst of a warming period at the time, winter temperatures were still five to six degrees Fahrenheit colder than now, which would have made survival a challenge for species not adapted to it.
“We really didn’t think early humans could cope with those kinds of environments,” archaeologist Nicholas Ashton of the British Museum said at a Tuesday news conference. Ashton is a co-author of the paper published in the journal Nature. Prior to this discovery, researchers didn’t believe hominids had gotten north of the Pyrenees and the Alps by that time.