Happisburgh, Norfolk is a fairly unassuming village on the English coast. Highlights include a pretty church and Britain’s only independently operated lighthouse. The entire lot might imminently fall into the sea, which would put it on the map just as it catastrophically disappears from it. But this tiny village is about to get a boost of fame – it turns out that Happisburgh was the site of the earliest known human settlement in Britain and, indeed, in Northern Europe.

Simon Parfitt from London’s Natural History Museum, together with a team of 15 British scientists, uncovered a set of over 70 flint tools from the Happisburgh shore, including hammers and cutting implements. These artefacts suggest that humans were living in