480,000 Years Ago: Who Killed the Boxgrove Horse? | Human Origins Documentary

At Boxgrove in West Sussex, a group of early humans butchered a horse beside a coastal lagoon 480,000 years ago. They left behind thousands of flint flakes, a shoulder blade with a hole punched through it, and the oldest human fossils ever found in Britain. This documentary follows that day step by step: the cliff and the lagoon, the lions and hyenas that shared the water, the hunt, the butchery, and the sharing of the meat. It then asks whether these people really hunted the horse or only found it dead. Part 3 of Before Britain, after the Happisburgh footprints and the Barnham fire. CHAPTERS 0:00 The horse and the empty spaces 3:07 The cliff, the lagoon and the lions 6:23 Waiting for the horse 9:35 A hole in the bone: hunters or scavengers? 12:32 Butchery on the beach 15:32 Leaving, and the Boxgrove shin bone 18:29 The quarry and 1,700 flints 21:41 What the mess tells us SOURCES Roberts, M. & Parfitt, S. (1999). Boxgrove: A Middle Pleistocene Hominid Site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex. English Heritage Archaeological Report 17. Pitts, M. & Roberts, M. (1997). Fairweather Eden. Century. Thieme, H. (1997). Lower Palaeolithic hunting spears from Germany. Nature 385, 807–810. [ADD ANY OTHER STUDIES YOUR SCRIPT CITES] New films on early humans, lost worlds and forgotten chapters of history. Subscribe so you don't miss the next Before Britain story. AI DISCLOSURE: Narration, visuals and animation are created with AI tools. Thumbnails and scenes are artistic representations based on archaeological evidence, not photographs of real events. Real evidence images are credited on screen. Business enquiries: beforethecodex@gmail.com #boxgrove #ancienthistory #humanorigins #homoheidelbergensis #earlyhumans #prehistory #beforebritain #documentary