Amateur Finds Prehistoric Axes in the North Sea

ICE Age axes used by prehistoric mammoth-hunters when the North Sea was dry land have been recovered from deep under the water, it was revealed today.

Before Britain became an island with the North Sea waters separating mainland Europe from the east coast, early man roamed the area using the flint tools to butcher animal carcasses.

Dutch amateur archaeologist Jan Meulmeester discovered the haul of 28 100,000-year-old hand-axes among gravel dredged from an area eight miles off Great Yarmouth.

The hand-axes date to the Palaeolithic – or Old Stone Age – era, but it is not yet known exactly when within that 750,000-year time span.

Experts today 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.

"In the Ice Age, the cold conditions meant that water was locked up in the ice caps. The sea level was lower then, so in some places what is now the seabed was dry land. The hand-axes would have been used by hunters in butchering the carcasses of animals like mammoths."

Bones and teeth were also recovered along with the axes. It took Mr Meulmeester three months to collect the haul.

Ian Oxley, head of maritime archaeology at English Heritage, said: "We know people were living there before Britain became an island, but sites proving this are rare."

In 2005, the dredging industry’s trade organisation, the British Marine Aggregate Producers Association, signed an agreement with English Heritage to protect archaeological finds from English waters.