A temporary export bar has been placed on two prehistoric handaxes representing some of the oldest human settlements in Britain
- The handaxes are believed to be around 500,000 years old
- The bar will allow time for UK museums or institutions to acquire the handaxes for the nation
Culture Minister Baroness Twycross has placed export bars on two flint handaxes that offer insights into the lives of Britain's earliest settlers, allowing time for a UK buyer to be found.
Both flint handaxes were discovered on the Happisburgh shoreline in Norfolk. Their discoveries followed the unexpected consequences of storms in the East of England, which cleared away clay on the beach shore and exposed ancient land surfaces underneath.
Created using a stone or antler hammer to knock off flakes from both sides of a larger piece of flint, these handaxes have strong, skilfully shaped edges suitable for cutting and scraping. They were used without handles.
One of the handaxes has an asymmetrical appearance, with small patches of orange-brown staining from the sediments in which it was deposited. This handaxe is 13cm long and weighs 465 grams.
The other handaxe is distinguishable by its mottled light brown and grey colouration. One side of the flint also retains a small patch of chalky outer cortex. This piece is just over 10cm long and weighs 308 grams.
Found on the Happisburgh shoreline, the handaxes belong with a series of finds connected to some of the first human occupation of northern Europe. They provide internationally significant insights into the type of technologies that first enabled humans to survive in northern environments.
Britain's environment was different from today when hunter-gatherers made these handaxes around 500,000 years ago. What became the River Thames then ran a northeastern course through Norfolk, entering the North Sea near the find site at Happisburgh. Subsequently, a cold period caused ice sheets to cover the North Sea, East Anglia and the Midlands, churning up and moving the ground beneath. As the climate warmed again, the ice sheets melted, dumping dirt and rock across the landscape covering the Happisburgh area. Recent rising sea levels and storms exposed the hunter-gatherers' campsites sealed underneath.
Culture Minister, Baroness Twycross said:
These handaxes present a window into the lives of some of our oldest ancestors. The Britain they inhabited was very different from our own and items like these provide a valuable insight into a world that is extremely difficult to research.
I hope these handaxes can find a UK buyer who can keep them accessible to the public, so that we can all share in the revelations they bring about some of Britain's very first settlers.
RCEWA committee member, Tim Pestell said:
Happisburgh, on the East Norfolk coast, can be said to represent the first page in British history. These wonderfully tactile flint handaxes, found on Happisburgh's shoreline, help provide internationally-significant evidence of the earliest human occupation in northern Europe, some 500-600,000 years ago. Follow-up research excavations and citizen science have revealed archaeological and geological evidence to contextualise these stray finds, and even recorded stretches of footprints preserved in ancient sediments, made by ancestor species of modern humans. It is hard to overstate the importance of finds from Happisburgh to scientific knowledge and to our nation's history. I therefore earnestly hope that these handaxes will be preserved in a museum collection where they can be accessible to both the general public on display and to the research community, to continue unlocking their secrets.
These objects are some of the oldest to be under export deferral in the last decade. This marks the seventh temporary export bar issued since the start of the year by the Government. This follows export bars placed on items such as a bust of John Gordon of Invergordon, Shock Dog by Anne Seymour Damer, and an archive of the Scots Mining Company.
The Minister's decision follows the advice of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) .
The Committee made its recommendation on the basis that both the handaxes met the first and third Waverley criteria for their outstanding connection with our history and national life and its outstanding, global significance to the archaeological, geological and palaeontological study of the most ancient human population of Britain.
The decision on the export licence application for the handaxes will be deferred for a period ending on 2 September 2026 inclusive. At the end of the first deferral period owners will have a consideration period of 15 Business Days to consider any offer(s) to purchase either handaxe at the recommended price of £15,000 (plus VAT of £3,000, which could be reclaimed by an eligible institution). The second deferral period will commence following the signing of an Option Agreement and will last for three months.
Offers from public bodies for less than the recommended price through the private treaty sale arrangements, where appropriate, may also be considered by the Minister. Such purchases frequently offer substantial financial benefit to a public institution wishing to acquire the item.
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