IT IS better known as a run-down fishing port that is home to the camp rock band the Darkness, but Lowestoft was yesterday revealed to be the unlikely cradle of British civilisation.

The discovery of a set of stone tools near the Suffolk town has shown that ancient human beings were living in Britain 200,000 years earlier than has generally been thought, making Lowestoft Man the first known Briton.

Sophisticated dating techniques have proved that the chipped flints were made about 700,000 years ago, making them by far the earliest evidence of human activity in northern Europe.

Remains belonging to Homo heidelbergensis, an older relative of Homo sapiens, have previously been discovered in Boxgrove, West Sussex, and in Mauer, Germany, but these sites have been dated to only 500,000 years ago.

Scientists hailed the find, at Pakefield, just outside Lowestoft, as “Stone Age gold” that fundamentally rewrites the history of how early Man migrated across Europe.

Fossils of Homo antecessor dating back 800,000 years have been found in Spain and Italy, but archaeologists had assumed that the primitive species was confined to the warm climate of the Mediterranean, spreading into the north only after a few hundred thousand years of evolution adapted it to cope with colder temperatures.

Recent research, however, has shown that the British climate was much warmer about 700,000 years ago than today, and the discovery of Lowestoft Man proves that early human beings were around to enjoy it. It is also possible that they arrived in Britain even earlier, and scientists are expanding their investigations in the hope of finding fossil remains that would tell them more about the nation’s first inhabitants.

“The fact we know there were people in Britain at this early date means we can start looking for more evidence of them,” Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, and a member of the research team, said. “It opens a new window. Until recently I wouldn’t have believed that there could be humans this far back. They could go back even farther — who knows? I’m sure this won’t be the only site of this particular age.”

The 32 tools, details of which are published today in the journal Nature, are likely to have been made by either Homo antecessor or Homo heidelbergensis.

While there are no large flint outcrops near the site, it lies on what was then Britain’s major river — the Bytham, which flowed from the Midlands into East Anglia before reaching the sea at Lowestoft. It was obliterated by glaciation during a subsequent Ice Age, but supplied Lowestoft Man with pebbles for chipping into tools.

The early human beings would have shared the banks of the river with a wealth of large mammals, most of which are now extinct or confined to Africa: hippopotamuses, bears, lions, rhinos, sabre-toothed cats, giant deer, mammoths and elephants.

The first tool was discovered in 2000, when a geologist attending a meeting at Pakefield spotted a chipped flint and showed it to an archaeologist colleague. This triggered a more extensive excavation, supported by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project. The tools have been dated by analysis of fossils at the site.

Scientists have also discovered slightly later signs of human habitation at Happisburgh, in Norfolk, including hand-axes and flaked flint, suggesting that there may have been multiple human settlements in the region.

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