Jersey – La Cotte de St Brelade, Neanderthal home 250,000 years ago
Jersey's story reaches back remarkably far. At La Cotte de St Brelade on the southwest coast, evidence shows that Neanderthals lived here as early as 200,000 to 250,000 years ago, when the island was still joined to the French mainland. Later, at Les Varines, modern humans of the Magdalenian culture left traces towards the end of the last ice age.
Jersey became an island around 5500 BC. Neolithic people built impressive dolmens such as La Hougue Bie, and Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements followed. Today Jersey is a self-governing Crown Dependency, the largest of the Channel Islands, with its own traditions and the Jèrriais language. Have a Jersey story or family memory? Share it with the community!