Home is where the past is

Archaeologists have uncovered the UK's earliest surviving house. The researchers, from the universities of Manchester and York, believe that the 3.5m diameter circular structure near Scarborough in North Yorkshire dates back to 8,500 BC, when Britain was still attached to continental Europe. The team, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, is currently excavating a wooden platform nearby, which it believes is the earliest evidence of carpentry in Europe. The archaeologists think that the structures were built by hunter-gatherers who occupied the site for a few hundred years just after the last Ice Age.