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Authors: Neil Oliver
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much of the continent. Pockets of population survived, in the south of France and Spain and perhaps further east in the area occupied today by the Mediterranean. For the most part,
though, even the best-equipped creatures – like the woolly mammoth – were unable to cope and fled in the face of the ice.
For thousands of years it was the same – a winter so long it would have made the Ice Queen’s hold on Narnia look like nothing more than a few bad days.
It was not until around 16,000 years ago that conditions eased a little, and Britain and the rest of northern Europe entered a period of relative respite – and in this context the word
‘relative’ is important. Conditions in Britain were still unspeakably cold by our standards but the ice did retreat to the extent that a few groups of hunters were able to contemplate a
return to this most northerly peninsula of western Europe. Word must have reached those surviving hunting communities in their boltholes in the south and gradually, like the light of dawn creeping
tentatively into the dark, humankind ventured onto our land once more.
From 14,000 or so years ago people were living all across southern Britain – in and around caves in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, in the Creswell Crags area near Sheffield in south Yorkshire,
at Kent’s Cavern in Devon as well as at just less than 30 other known locations, all of them in England. The tools and other evidence they left behind have been grouped together into the
‘Creswellian Culture’ and it has much in common with the lifestyle of folk of similar vintage living in southern Europe around the same time and even considerably earlier. On the other
side of the English Channel similar material is described as ‘Magdalenian’ – after finds in La Madeleine rock-shelter in the Dordogne.
After the mighty handaxes of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, some of the Creswellian toolkit can appear fairly uninspiring at first glance. The modest little blades and points of flint
knocked off a prepared ‘core’ are regarded by archaeologists, however, as a mark of sophistication, and of technological advance. While a handaxe was a single tool used for many jobs,
by the Creswellian period of the Upper Palaeolithic craftsmen were making specialised equipment for specific tasks. They were also making exquisite harpoon points from mammoth ivory and needles and
awls from the bones and teeth of other animals. Marine amber from the coast of the North Sea and even further afield was also being collected, by a people used to ranging over vast territories in
search of raw materials. The amber wasmade into beads for jewellery, things that show these people had the time and the inclination to make decorative items just for the joy
of it. There are also sometimes so-called ‘batons’ of carefully worked reindeer antler which, while they may have had some practical function, seem just as likely to have been carried
purely as status symbols.
Back where they had presumably come from, in south-west France perhaps, or southern Spain, some of the people had been in the habit of expressing themselves in breathtaking art. In hundreds of
caves – most famously at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain – artists conjured entire herds of bulls and horses; woolly mammoths and rhinos and the rest of the animals that shared
their world, with palettes of colour prepared from natural pigments.
They are works so visceral, so potent they could only ever have been executed by painters who knew their subjects like they knew their mothers and brothers. It is even unlikely they saw as
clear-cut a division between themselves and the great beasts as we do – rather they were depicting kindred spirits. Illuminated by flickering flames – as many must have been, since they
are painted in chambers beyond the reach of natural light – the painted animals seem almost to move or at least to breathe. The illusion is heightened by the way the
though, even the best-equipped creatures – like the woolly mammoth – were unable to cope and fled in the face of the ice.
For thousands of years it was the same – a winter so long it would have made the Ice Queen’s hold on Narnia look like nothing more than a few bad days.
It was not until around 16,000 years ago that conditions eased a little, and Britain and the rest of northern Europe entered a period of relative respite – and in this context the word
‘relative’ is important. Conditions in Britain were still unspeakably cold by our standards but the ice did retreat to the extent that a few groups of hunters were able to contemplate a
return to this most northerly peninsula of western Europe. Word must have reached those surviving hunting communities in their boltholes in the south and gradually, like the light of dawn creeping
tentatively into the dark, humankind ventured onto our land once more.
From 14,000 or so years ago people were living all across southern Britain – in and around caves in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, in the Creswell Crags area near Sheffield in south Yorkshire,
at Kent’s Cavern in Devon as well as at just less than 30 other known locations, all of them in England. The tools and other evidence they left behind have been grouped together into the
‘Creswellian Culture’ and it has much in common with the lifestyle of folk of similar vintage living in southern Europe around the same time and even considerably earlier. On the other
side of the English Channel similar material is described as ‘Magdalenian’ – after finds in La Madeleine rock-shelter in the Dordogne.
After the mighty handaxes of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, some of the Creswellian toolkit can appear fairly uninspiring at first glance. The modest little blades and points of flint
knocked off a prepared ‘core’ are regarded by archaeologists, however, as a mark of sophistication, and of technological advance. While a handaxe was a single tool used for many jobs,
by the Creswellian period of the Upper Palaeolithic craftsmen were making specialised equipment for specific tasks. They were also making exquisite harpoon points from mammoth ivory and needles and
awls from the bones and teeth of other animals. Marine amber from the coast of the North Sea and even further afield was also being collected, by a people used to ranging over vast territories in
search of raw materials. The amber wasmade into beads for jewellery, things that show these people had the time and the inclination to make decorative items just for the joy
of it. There are also sometimes so-called ‘batons’ of carefully worked reindeer antler which, while they may have had some practical function, seem just as likely to have been carried
purely as status symbols.
Back where they had presumably come from, in south-west France perhaps, or southern Spain, some of the people had been in the habit of expressing themselves in breathtaking art. In hundreds of
caves – most famously at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain – artists conjured entire herds of bulls and horses; woolly mammoths and rhinos and the rest of the animals that shared
their world, with palettes of colour prepared from natural pigments.
They are works so visceral, so potent they could only ever have been executed by painters who knew their subjects like they knew their mothers and brothers. It is even unlikely they saw as
clear-cut a division between themselves and the great beasts as we do – rather they were depicting kindred spirits. Illuminated by flickering flames – as many must have been, since they
are painted in chambers beyond the reach of natural light – the painted animals seem almost to move or at least to breathe. The illusion is heightened by the way the
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