Hunting seems to have been practised from at least 500,000 years ago, no doubt supplementing the meat supplied by scavenging. At Boxgrove, in Sussex, it is clear that humans were the dominant predator, being more successful than the big cats and hyaenas. Gnaw marks from hyaenas on the horse and deer bones occurred after the cut-marks from human butchery, showing that humans were the first to the kill. A puncture mark in the shoulder-blade of a horse was probably inflicted by a wooden spear. Whether it was thrust or thrown, the spear must have hit the horse with considerable force to break through the hide and pierce the bone.

Wooden artefacts are very rarely preserved, but uniquely in Britain, the tip of a spear was found at Clacton, Essex, at a site that dates to 400,000 years ago. The spear is over 35 cm in length and was carefully shaped with flint tools in to a sharp point from a slender branch of yew. Its original size is unknown, although similar spears made from the heartwood of spruce from Schöningen in Germany are over 2m in length.