Germany in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen where three 380,000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first ever non-modern human fossil was discovered; the new species of human was called the Neanderthal. The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans, similarly dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm. The finds include 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man which is the oldest uncontested figurative
Stokes Valley greater Wellington area have experienced major tectonic uplifting it is possible that the valley was formed through major earthquakes and erosion. According to tradition, Māori arrived in the Hutt Valley in about 1250 AD when the two sons of Whatonga, a Hawke's Bay chief, settled in the area and named the Hutt River "Heretaunga", after their old home. Although Māori had lived in the Hutt Valley for almost 600 years prior to Europeans, there has been no evidence of Māori habitation in Stokes Valley and the closest iwi (tribe), located at Waiwhetu, say they never used the valley for any