First Britons faced mammoths and sabre-toothed cats

When the first humans arrived more than 840,000 years ago Britain was already home to southern mammoths
Illustration: Cian O'Luanaigh/Guardian

An artist's impression of Happisburgh, Norfolk, as it might have looked more than 800,000 years ago. Remnants of their stone tools were found close to the seashore where coastal erosion has exposed a treasure trove of fossils, including remains of giant beavers, mammoths, red deer and primitive horses
Photograph: John Sibbick/PA

Excavations on the Norfolk coast near Happisburgh in 2006
Photograph: Phil Crabb/Natural History Museum, London

Artefacts were found in a layer of brown gravel, beneath layers of sand and silt
Photograph: Phil Crabb/Natural History Museum, London

At the time of the ancient human occupation at Happisburgh, the Thames drained into the North Sea, 150 kilometres to the north of its current estuary. The broken lines indicate the ancient coastline. In between is the land bridge that once connected Britain to mainland Europe
Photograph: Parfitt et al/Nature

Some of the flint tools on display at a press conference at the Royal Institution in London earlier today
Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

A mammoth tooth (centre), a hyena dropping (left), and the jaw of an extinct giant beaver
Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

Palaeontologist Simon Parfitt examines the fossilised hyena dropping
Photograph: Sang Tan/AP