This is the sixth of a series of reviews, looking back at a year of science according to topic and theme. This one covers my favourite discoveries about the distant past. They change our views of (and push back the dates of) some of the most important events in prehistory, from the origin of complex life, to the invasion of the land, to the development of human butchery (well, maybe).

An unassuming English village called Happisburgh, Norfolk happens to be the site of Britain’s earliest known human settlement. With the village about to fall into the sea, archaeologists uncovered over 70 flint tools from the exposed shore. They suggest that humans lived in this area over 800,000 years ago, some 100,000