Letter: No bones about it

From Mr Simon Denison

Sir: If a team of American scientists genuinely believe they have found the world's oldest bone tools, some 90,000 years old, in Zaire ("Stone Age folk in the Rift Valley 'lived in nuclear families' ", 28 April), they should read the Independent, if not the more specialist press. In November last year, you reported the discovery of bone tools some 500,000 years old at Boxgrove in Sussex, which were made by a precursor of Homo sapiens before the onset of the Anglian ice age.

It is a neat example of the fact that, contrary to the perceptions of many human-origins researchers, some of the most exciting and advanced archaeology in the world is currently being done in Britain.

Yours faithfully,

SIMON DENISON

Editor,

British Archaeology

Council for British Archaeology

London, SW4