Creswell Crags is a gorge flanked by limestone cliffs with a series of caves that have been utilised and inhabited by hominids for 50,000 years. The first seasonal visitors were Neanderthals who were following herds of reindeer, bison, mammoths and horses, and would have had to compete with lions and hyenas for the same prey. The Neanderthals used the caves as summer camps and have left behind flint hand axes, tools and animal bones with traces of butchery marks. Later, around 30,000 years ago, the first modern humans began using these caves for exactly the same reasons, leaving their more advanced flints as well as shaped bone and antler tools as evidence of their occupation. The last group of Palaeolithic hunters to use the caves did so around 11-13,000 years ago and left a type of fine shaped flint known as Creswell Points as well as several pieces of decorated bone that include hatched patterns, a human figure and a horse's head. Discoveries continue to be made at Creswell Crags and in 2003 it was announced that the first example of British Palaeolithic cave art had been found in one of the caverns. These designs consist of engravings of a pair of birds and an animal that could be an ibex. Finds from later periods indicate that the caves continued to be used
sporadically through the Mesolithic and Neolithic up until Roman times
and even into the Middle Ages but heavy handed Victorian excavations have
meant the loss of much valuable evidence and the caves are now closed
to visitors to protect what might remain undiscovered. |
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