http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessor

You can see from the Spanish discovery that tools were used. Think its obvious when the defleshing of animal carcases was done, it would have been the same here as well, very early tools. The earliest (to date) must have come from the Rift valley (Olduvian), but there's a sequence of tools through the millenia.

Yeah that question came into my mind as well, it wasn't explained in the film, I guess it's the era?? Interesting stuff though, in one way it's not long ago at all, though in another it's a totally different landscape and shape of the country and climate and everything (and those extinct animals running about too).

It must have been bloody miserable surviving the winter, especially as it was colder than our winters now. (made the drawings of clothesless people look a bit daft).