Stone age hunter-gatherers' 'paradise' discovered next to major Israeli road

Archaeologists find hundreds of hand-axes used by early humans over half a million years ago at Jaljulia, north-east of Tel Aviv

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered next to one of the country's busiest roads the site of an extraordinarily well preserved prehistoric "paradise" used by stone age hunter-gatherers over half a million years ago, who left behind evidence of hundreds of knapped flint hand-axes.

The discovery at about a five-metre depth at Jaljulia, near the town of Kfar Saba, suggests that an extinct species of early human - homo erectus - may have returned to the site repeatedly, perhaps attracted by a water source and abundant game, leaving behind evidence of their primitive stone tools.