Free Republic

Andrew Broadhurst was filmed by a concerned motorist repeatedly weaving across the road and narrowly missing oncoming vehicles. When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Your information will be used in accordance with ourPrivacy Notice. A man caught behind the wheel almost 16 times over the legal drug-drive limit had earlier got back in his van and continued driving after testing positive for drugs, a court has heard. Andrew Broadhurst was filmed repeatedly weaving across the road and narrowly missing oncoming traffic just hours after he had been been pulled over, tested...

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar has criticized the Trump administration for its record on gay rights and says he will bring up the topic with Trump when they meet on Thursday of this week. “What I intend to say is that for the vast majority of people around the world including people from gay lesbian transgender backgrounds, we have always seen America as a beacon of freedom,” the Taoiseach, who is gay, said. “This is the land of the free, the home of the brave. This is where the LGBT rights movement began.” He added: “It is really tough to...

Eight times humans came to try to live in Britain and on at least seven occasions they failed - beaten back by freezing conditions. Scientists think they can now write a reasonably comprehensive history of the occupation of these isles. It stretches from 700,000 years ago and the first known settlers at Pakefield in Suffolk, through to the most recent incomers just 12,000 years or so ago. The evidence comes from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project.... Scientists now think there were seven gaps in the occupation story - times when there was probably no human settlement of any...

LONDON (AP) -- Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England. Scientists said Wednesday that 32 black flint artifacts, found in river sediments in Pakefield in eastern England, date back 700,000 years and represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human presence north of the Alps. Scientists had long held that humans had not migrated north from the relatively warm climates of the Mediterranean region until half a...

Tools unlock secrets of early man By Mark Kinver Science reporter, BBC News website Researchers are confident the tools are 700,000 years old New research shows that early humans were living in Britain around 700,000 years ago, much earlier than scientists had previously thought. Using new dating techniques, scientists found that flint tools unearthed in Pakefield, Suffolk, were 200,000 years older than the previous oldest find. Humans were known to have lived in southern Europe 780,000 years ago but it was unclear when they moved north. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature. A team of scientists...

Humans in England May Go Back 700,000 Years By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer Wed Dec 14, 2:04 PM ET LONDON - Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England. ADVERTISEMENT Scientists said Wednesday that 32 black flint artifacts, found in river sediments in Pakefield in eastern England, date back 700,000 years and represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human presence north of the Alps. Scientists had...

A piece of jawbone that has lain in Torquay Museum, Devon, for nearly 80 years could be the oldest example of a modern human yet found in Europe. The Kent's Cavern specimen was thought to be about 31,000 years old, but re-dating shows it is actually between 37,000 and 40,000 years old. However, the early dates lead the team behind the research to wonder if the jawbone is actually from a Neanderthal. A new examination of the fragment along with DNA analysis could sort this out. The fragment of maxilla (upper jaw) containing three teeth was unearthed in Kent's Cavern,...

Archaeologists believe they have found the birthplace of British civilisation, and it is underneath a £15-a-night caravan park in Norfolk, England. Discoveries at the site include one million-year-old artefacts and fossilised animal remains, which are the oldest ever found in the UK. Scientists now believe that it was the first, or one of the first settlement sites of early humans in Britain. Although researchers are yet to uncover any human remains from our predecessors, it is believed the site currently lying beneath Manor Caravan Park in Happisburgh, Norfolk, was a settlement created by early human relatives, such as Homo erectus....

A set of 32 flint tools uncovered on the east coast of the United Kingdom indicates that humans inhabited northern Europe almost 700,000 years ago--200,000 years earlier than previously thought. The discovery suggests these early people had the social or technological ability to adapt to varied terrain and, perhaps, climates. Although human ancestors ventured out of their African homeland at least 1.8 million years ago, their bones and tools did not show up in northern Europe until half a million years ago. The earliest evidence of human occupation came from Boxgrove, England, where researchers found a 500,000-year-old shinbone and teeth...

Boxgrove The man who died half a million years ago In a gravel pit at Boxgrove, just outside Chichester, the remains of a man have been discovered, half a million years old. Only a shin bone and two teeth were discovered, but his position, under thick layers of gravel show that he is the oldest 'man' so far discovered in Britain. The Boxgrove quarry The discovery was made in a gravel quarry. The gravel was laid down in a later Ice Age on top of a chalk bed, which is visible in the upper squares. Originally a stream flowed from...

ARCHAEOLOGISTS TO DRILL IN BEXLEY FOR EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT OCCUPATION By 24 Hour Museum Staff 29/02/2008 An illustration of Homo neanderthalensis at Swanscombe, Kent, one of the sites investigated in the AHOB project. © Natural History Museum Archaeologists from Durham University will be returning to a London borough site where a 19th century historian once found flint tools and animal bones. This time, however, the latest sonic drilling equipment will be used to take samples from the earth, for the ongoing Ancient Human Occupation of Britain II project (AHOB). Initial drillings were carried out at Holmscroft Open Space in September...

The mysterious end of Essex man Archaeologists now believe two groups of early humans fought for dominance in ancient Britain - and the axe-wielders won Robin McKie, science editor Sunday January 23, 2005 The Observer Divisions in British culture may be deeper than we thought. Scientists have discovered startling evidence that suggests different species of early humans may have fought to settle within our shores almost half a million years ago. They have found that two different groups - one wielding hand-axes, the other using Stone Age Stanley knives to slash and kill - could have been rivals for control...

Scientists Find 800,000-Year-Old Footprints Inn UK (Update) Jill LawlessFebuary 7, 2014Undated handout photo issued by the British Museum Friday Feb. 7, 2014 of some of the human footprints, thought to be more than 800,000 years old, found in silt on the beach at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast of England, with a camera lens …They were a British family on a day out—almost a million years ago. Archaeologists announced Friday that they have discovered human footprints in England that are between 800,000 and 1 million years old—the most ancient found outside Africa, and the earliest evidence of human life in...

Ancient skeleton was 'even older' The burial site was in Goat's Hole Cave at Paviland on Gower The Red Lady of Paviland has always been a little coy about her age - but it appears she may be 4,000 years older than previously thought. Scientists say more accurate tests date the earliest human burial found in the UK to just over 29,000 years ago. When discovered in a cave on Gower in the 1820s the bones were thought to be around 18,000 years old, but were later redated to between 25,000 and 26,000. Researchers said it casts a new light...

Earliest British cemetery dated A cave in the Mendip Hills in southwest England has been revealed as the earliest scientifically dated cemetery in Britain. The age of the cemetery makes it an important European site The site at Aveline's Hole, near Burrington Combe, contained human bone fragments that have now been confirmed to be between roughly 10,200 and 10,400 years old. The specimens - representing about 21 individuals - were originally removed from the cave in the early years of the 20th Century and were held in a museum in Bristol. There, the collection was largely destroyed in a World...

Prehistoric Knives Suggest Humans Competed By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Feb. 1, 2005 — A recent excavation of 400,000-year-old stone tools in Britain suggests that two groups of early humans could have competed with each other for food and turf. In the past, anthropologists have argued that only one group of ancient humans lived in Britain, and that these hominids created and used both axes and flake knives, which were made by flaking off small particles from a larger rock, or by breaking off a large flake that was then used as the tool. Some form of prehistoric human had...

Stones may hold key to why we are here ISABEL COCKAYNE January 28, 2004 10:06 They may not look like the greatest talkers, but these stones have a story to tell. Hundreds of thousands of years ago they were washed down to East Anglia with a vast river that cut through the middle of England. But what the experts are puzzling over today is where this river ran its course. If they can plot its course and date it accurately, they could prove there were humans living in Britain 500,000 years ago and fill a gap in our pre-historic knowledge....

Study: Megaflood Separated U.K., France Jul 18, 4:22 PM (ET) By THOMAS WAGNER LONDON (AP) - One of Earth's largest-ever megafloods broke apart a strip of land connecting what is now Britain and France, permanently separating them, a new study says. The flood unleashed about 35 million cubic feet of water per second, 100 times greater than the water discharge of the Mississippi River. The natural disaster, which occurred about 400,000 years ago during a glacial period, was later followed by rising sea levels that created what is now the English Channel, the study says. It is not known if...

Scientists bid to take Neanderthal DNA sample KARL MANSFIELD SCIENTISTS are attempting to extract DNA for the first time from the fossilised bones thought to be of a Neanderthal man who roamed Britain 35,000 years ago. Experts plan to use a tooth from an upper jaw to establish whether the closest relative of modern humans lived on the British Isles later than it was once thought. The fragment of an upper jaw, which was found in 1926 at Kent's Cavern in Devon, was originally thought to be human, but experts now think it could date back even further. Chris Stringer,...

Channel's key role in pre-history By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Gibraltar The remains we find today tell a story of Britain's ancient past A study of prehistoric animals has revealed the crucial role of the English Channel in shaping the course of Britain's natural history. The Channel acted as a filter, letting some animals in from mainland Europe, but not others. Even at times of low sea level, when Britain was not an island, the Channel posed a major barrier to colonisation. This was because a massive river system flowed along its bed, UK researchers told a palaeo-conference...