Eartham Pit is an internationally important archaeological site north-east of Boxgrove in West Sussex with findings that date to the Lower Palaeolithic. The oldest human remains in Britain have been discovered on the site, fossils of Homo heidelbergensis dating to 500,000 years ago. Boxgrove is also one of the oldest sites in Europe with direct evidence of hunting and butchering by early humans. Only part of the site is protected through designation, one area being a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, as well as a Geological Conservation Review site. Other key Palaeolithic sites in the UK include Swanscombe, Pontnewydd, Kents Cavern, Paviland, and Gough's Cave. The site is close to a fossil shoreline that has interglacial mammal fauna in intertidal sediments. The site was discovered by Andrew Woodcock and Roy Shephard-Thorn in 1974. They recorded the geological sequence, in-situ artefacts and fossil mammal remains. Parts of the site complex were later excavated between 1982 and 1996 by a team led by Mark Roberts of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. The site is situated in an area that features a buried chalk cliff that overlooked a flat beach (which contained a waterhole) stretching approximately half a mile (1 km) south to the sea. History The site is important for many reasons, including the degree of preservation of ancient land surfaces, the impressive total extent of the palaeolandscape beyond the quarries (over 26 km wide), its huge quantity of well-preserved animal bones, its numerous flint artifacts, and its hominin fossils that are among some of the most ancient found yet in Europe. Several of the animal bones are the oldest found specimens of their species, such as the wing bone of the great auk found at the site in 1989. The combination of bones, stone artifacts, and the geology of the landscape gives a very complete picture of the coastal plain as it existed half a million years ago. Numerous Acheulean flint tools and remains of animals dating to approximately 500,000 years ago were found at the site. Some of the bones were found to display cut marks, and some of the tools bear use wear traces indicative of cutting meat, indicating that the site was used for butchery by some of the earliest occupants of the British Isles. They shared the area with a wide variety of animals whose bones have been found there, including lion, bear, rhinoceros,