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One of the most obvious and undeniable signs of interpersonal violence, ancient or modern, is a weapon or projectile lodged in a body. Today we’d look for a bullet tearing through flesh. In the Stone Age, we look for stone arrowheads and spearheads lodged in ancient bones. The earliest examples in Europe come from two sites in Italy, around 13,000

Archaeology can provide many clues, showing us that goods were being exchanged between hunters and farmers, for instance. North of the farmed Danube Valley, we can see that hunter-gatherers were acquiring pottery, antler axes and bone combs from their new neighbours in the south. They may have traded fur and amber in return. But it’s difficult to k

The British Neolithic starts around 6,000 years ago. The beginning of this era in prehistory marks a change in subsistence that I believe was the most profound revolution that human societies have ever experienced, when our ancestors started farming.

‘We now have clear proof of cannibalism in this site.’ Signs of butchery were everywhere – not just on the odd bone. Almost two thirds of bones from post-cranial parts of the skeleton (any bone other than the skull and mandible) bore cut-marks. And in many places, the cuts were grouped, in parallel, at key sites of muscle and ligament attachment. T

The way that all the different bodies had been butchered was consistent, and very similar to the way that other large mammal remains from the cave had been cut up. But there was something unusual about the way the human remains had been treated – when it came to the head. ‘We had three skulls which were perfectly preserved,’ Silvia told me. ‘So the

‘We think that it was to produce a container,’ she said. ‘It was a cup.’ This was deeply strange. I wanted to question it, to doubt it. But there was the evidence in front of me, and I couldn’t think of any other explanation for the way this skull had been carved, sculpted. It certainly didn’t seem to be purely functional – it wasn’t just about ext

In the Mesolithic, we find traces of more permanent – or at least, less ephemeral – buildings in the landscape. This is the point in time where we find evidence of what may reasonably be called Britain’s first houses – robust huts or tipi-like structures that were permanent in the landscape and used over several generations – where, previously, peo

Just a mile away from Gough’s Cave, Aveline’s Hole in Burrington Combe proved to be a veritable Mesolithic cemetery – contained within a cave – with around fifty people buried there over a century or two.

The genetic basis for the pale skin that was to become characteristic of western European populations seems to arrive later, with populations expanding across Europe in the Neolithic – as farming spreads – and again, in the Bronze Age – with a population boom and spread that starts in the Pontic steppe then ripples out.