The archaeology of Britain's first modern humans

The sites of the first modern humans who occupied what is now Britain have been reduced to a handful by subsequent glaciation and the rise in sea level, and their assemblages have been further depleted because early excavators ignored the microliths. Confronting the challenges of this exiguous material, the author succeeds in painting a vivid picture of Aurignacian hunters following prey down the now submerged Channel River Valley, colonising the preferred hilly zones at the west of Britain. The presence of two types of bladelet manufacture suggests a lengthy or repeated period of subsequent occupation.