There is evidence from bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits near Happisburgh in Norfolk and Bakersfield in Suffolk that "Homo erectus" was present in what is now Britain around 700,000 years ago. At this time, southern and eastern Britain was linked to continental Europe by a wide land bridge allowing humans to move freely. The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the Thames and Seine.