Boxgrove Man

Boxgrove Man
Tibia from Boxgrove Man
Common nameBoxgrove Man
SpeciesHomo, species uncertain
Age480,000 years, Marine Isotope Stage 13, Middle Pleistocene
Place discoveredBoxgrove, England, United Kingdom
Date discovered1993
Discovered byMark Roberts

Boxgrove Man is a name given to three fossils of early humans, possibly Homo heidelbergensis, found at the Boxgrove site in Sussex, England and dated to about 480,000 years old. The fossils include the shaft of a tibia (shinbone) and two incisor teeth of the lower jaw. The two incisors probably belonged to the same individual but not the same individual represented by the tibia. The tibia was of a mature robustly built adult, and the teeth are similar to those of the similarly aged Spanish Sima de los Huesos hominins which genetic evidence indicates are early members of the Neanderthal line. They are the oldest fossils of the genus Homo found in Britain.