Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge with a honeycomb of caves that were occupied during the last Ice Age.
Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge with a honeycomb of caves that were occupied during the last Ice Age. The caves provided shelter for nomadic humans between 55,000 and 10,000 years ago, and stone tools, worked bone items and the remains of animals, including a woolly mammoth, bison and reindeer, give some evidence about the lives of our ancestors. There was great excitement in 2003 when engravings and bas reliefs of animals were found on the walls and ceilings of some of the caves. Previously it had been thought that there were no examples of cave art in Britain. Creswell Crags is a stunning, naturally formed, 500 meter long gorge cut into the magnesium limestone on the Nottingham/Derbyshire border, 10 miles east of Chesterfield. The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Conservation Area, a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation and part of a Grade II listed park associated with Welbeck Abbey. A series of caves formed within the magnesium limestone cliffs that line the gorge have provided a vast array of archaeological discoveries. The site hit the headlines in April 2003 with the discovery of the Ice Age Cave Art that was billed as one of the most important prehistoric finds in the last decade. It is Britain's earliest cave art – 13,000 years old, with figures of birds, deer, bison and horse. Archaeological finds dating back between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago have also been discovered, including bones of woolly mammoth, hippopotamus and rhinoceros. The caves were inhabited intermittently by hyena packs that dragged their prey back into the protection of the caves. Excavations have also unearthed some exquisite examples of crafted flint and bone tools proving that Ice Age hunters visited the site to hunt reindeer and horse. The most famous is an 8cm long fragment of bone with an etched outline of a horse thought to be approximately 12,500 years old which is currently on loan to the museum from the British Museu
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Location: Nottinghamshire Creswell Crags
Photo credit: © Steve Welsh / Alamy / Afripics
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