MANCHESTER, England, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- British archaeologists working at a Stone Age site in North Yorkshire say they've uncovered Britain's oldest surviving house.
Teams from Manchester and York universities say the 11-foot circular structure dates to at least 8,500 BC, when Britain was still a part of the European landmass, a University of Manchester release said Tuesday.
The structure was unearthed next to an ancient lake at Star Carr, near Scarborough, a site comparable in archaeological importance to Stonehenge, scientists say.
Researchers are also excavating a large wooden platform next to the lake, made from split and hewn timbers, said to be the earliest evidence of carpentry in Europe.
The house at Star Carr predates what was previously Britain's oldest known dwelling at Howick, Northumberland, by at least 500 years.
"This changes our ideas of the lives of the first settlers to move back into Britain after the end of the last Ice Age," Dr. Chantal Conneller the University of Manchester said.
"We used to think they moved around a lot and left little evidence. Now we know they built large structures and were very attached to particular places in the landscape," she said.
