A team of international archaeologists from the UK and Germany, led by scientists from the University of Cambridge, discovered the oldest axes in Northern Europe in the southeast of England, as well as more than 200 other artifacts. The results of the study are published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Excavations were carried out at the location of Fordwich (a suburb of Canterbury), where almost a hundred years ago (in the 1920s) while working in a quarry, 330 bifaces (hacks) were found, the origin of which is attributed to the Lower Paleolithic. Since then, experts have unearthed a small number of finds there. Most of the recently discovered artifacts were flint flakes and their fragments. Scientists estimate their age at 560-620 thousand years, which makes Fordwich the oldest archaeological site in Northern Europe.

Earlier, excavations in the Dutch province of Gelderland, near the German border, unearthed a 2,000-year-old Roman temple.