Ice Age axes dredged up from North Sea
News - March 11, 2008
Various news sources in the Uk report that Ice Age axes used by prehistoric mammoth-hunters when the North Sea was dry land have been unearthed from deep under the water off the coast of Great Yarmouth.
According to Press Association reports, Dutch amateur archaeologist Jan Meulmeester discovered the haul of 28 100,000-year-old hand-axes among gravel dredged from an area eight miles (13km) off the Norfolk coastline.
The hand-axes date to the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age, era but it is not yet known exactly when in that 750,000-year time span.
Experts hailed the discovery, saying it offered rare evidence of life before the North Sea existed.
Phil Harding, of Wessex Archaeology and Channel 4's Time Team, described the finds as "massively important".
"Although we don't yet know their precise date, we can say that these hand-axes are the single most important find of Ice Age material from below the North Sea," he said.
Ian Oxley, head of maritime archaeology at English Heritage, said: "These are exciting finds which help us gain a greater understanding of the North Sea at a time when it was land. "We know people were living out there before Britain became an island, but sites actually proving this are rare."
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