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Brighton & Hove

The skeletal remains for this early modern man also came from elsewhere in Europe, but tools manufactured by Homo sapiens show that modern humans were living in Brighton just as the Neanderthals were going extinct. Studies suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans may have overlapped in Europe for as much as 4,000 years.

While this Neanderthal woman’s remains come from elsewhere in Europe, movement between what is now continental Europe and the British Islands was easier during the last Ice Age, and artifacts from southern England show that both Neanderthals and modern humans were residents of Brighton some 40,000 years ago.

Discovered in 1985 during building works, Stafford Road Man is among the first wave of Saxons to enter Britain after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Buried with a spear and a knife around 500 A.D., he lived an unusually long and active life and died after the age of 45. Apart from arthritis in his spine, shoulders, and hips, skeletal analysis shows Stafford Road Man suffered from an enormous dental abscess, which would have caused terrible pain and likely killed him after the infection spread to his brain.

Patcham Woman was a resident of Roman Britain, and her burial may be a 1,700-year-old crime scene: She was discovered by ditch diggers in 1936, buried in a fairly deep pit with a nail driven deep into the back of her skull. More nails were scattered by her knees, and a male skeleton was found lying feet-to-feet with her. Signs of stress and disease in her spine and joints show she led a hard physical life before dying sometime between the ages of 25 and 35.

Slonk Hill Man died about 2,300 years ago, but his cause of death remains a mystery. Excavated in 1968 during a highway project, he was an active, strong, and healthy man in his later twenties when he passed away and was buried in a semi-crouched position in the bottom of a storage pit, a practice typical during the Iron Age. What makes the burial unusual, however, is that he was laid atop a thick pile of uncooked and uneaten mollusks—especially considering that seafood would not have been a common part of Slonk Hill Man’s diet.

Ditchling Road Man, named for the road-widening project that revealed his remains in 1921, was part of the first wave of farmers from continental Europe that arrived in Britain with their distinctive Beaker pottery around 2,400 B.C. His remains show that he suffered several periods of malnutrition while growing up, which may have slightly stunted his growth. Ditchling Road Man died between the ages of 25 and 35 and was buried with a Beaker vessel by his feet and a small number of snail shells next to his mouth.

Small and slender, Whitehawk Woman lived about 5,600 years ago and died before the age of 25, possibly during childbirth (the remains of a fetus were found in her pelvic area). She was excavated in 1933 from a burial in the Whitehawk Enclosure, one of Britain’s earliest Neolithic monuments. Recent DNA analysis from the Neolithic Whitehawk population suggests they were generally dark eyed and dark skinned in comparison to the Beaker population that eventually replaced them around 4,400 years ago.