Britain first becomes an island about three hundred and fifty thousand years ago, near the beginning of the Wolstonian stage, named after the site of Wolston in the English county of Warwickshire where corresponding deposits were first identified.

This period sees the introduction of Levallois flint tools, possibly by humans arriving from Africa, although finds from Swanscombe and Botany Pit in Purfleet support Levallois technology as a European rather than African introduction.

This more advanced flint technology, which made hunting more efficient, therefore made Britain a more worthwhile place to remain until the increasingly cool climate of the Wolstonian Stage, which apparently includes three periods of glaciation, made continued habitation unattractive, if not impossible.

Acheulean flint tools, typically found with Homo erectus remains, have been found in Wolstonian deposits.

The Northern Hemisphere ice sheet is ephemeral before the onset of extensive glaciation over Greenland that occurs in the late Pliocene around three hundred thousand years ago.

The formation of an Arctic ice cap is signaled by an abrupt shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic and North Pacific ocean beds.

Mid-latitude glaciation is probably underway before the end of the epoch.

The global cooling that occurs during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas.

Neanderthals probably diverge from Homo heidelbergensis some three hundred thousand years ago in Europe during the Wolstonian Stage, from three hundred and fifty-two thousand to one hundred and thirty thousand years ago.

The Clactonian flint tool industry develop at sites such as Barnfield Pit in Kent during the period of relatively warm climate from around three hundred thousand to two hundred thousand years ago.

The period produces a rich and widespread distribution of sites by Paleolithic standards.

Clactonian tools are made by Homo erectus rather than modern humans.

Uncertainty over the relationship between the Clactonian and Acheulean industries is still unresolved.

As in Africa, fossils that seem to represent subspecies of Homo sapiens have been found in Central Europe at Vértesszőlős (about three hundred and fifty thousand years old), ...

...Steinheim (two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand years old), ...

...Biache, and ...

...Swanscombe.

The Swanscombe fossil from southern England, the skull of an adult female with heavy brow ridges and a large projecting face.

Identified as Homo heidelbergensis, the Swanscombe skull dates to the Hoxnian Interglacial of four hundred thousand years ago, and since this follows the extreme Anglian ice age which drove humans out of the British Isles, the Swanscombe people must represent a re-colonization.

It is among these and similar finds in Africa that the line of distinction between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens becomes dim, for one species is apparently grading imperceptibly into its successor.

The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to around 270,000 BCE, is to be found in the Petralona cave, in the Greek province of Macedonia.

The fossil, the skull of an adult female, has heavy browbridges, and a large projecting face.

This specimen is similar to those found on other fossil skulls from about the same time period in Europe, including the partial skull from Steinheim in southern Germany, and the skull from Swanscombe cave in southern England.

These archaic Homo sapiens represent the early stages of Homo sapiens evolution in Europe.

Homo erectus (a species of human best known from finely made handaxes and other butchery tools found at locations like Isimila and …