People don’t change

Yesterday I joined a group visiting Grimes Graves, and met Jennifer Wexler, and engaging young archeologist. After putting on a hard hat and harness, we went down into the deepest flint mine that was dug around 4,500 years ago. I learned a lot about flint mining and the way of life of those who excavated, then traded flints from these mines.

But the fact that struck me most, was that left handed Neolithic people used right antlers, and right handed people left antlers to dig the mine. They could tell from the used antlers left in the mine that 10% of Neolithic people were left handed.

I am left handed, so know that today the proportion of the population that is left handed today is aso 10%, so has not changed in thousands of years. People today are not so different to those that lived thousands of years ago.