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The oldest cave art in England was created during the last Ice Age, when our ancient ancestors drew images of birds, mammals and other creatures to describe the world around them. Now, newly discovered images tell an entirely different story – witches' marks. Located in Creswell Crags, a limestone gorge that sits between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, the carvings were discovered by a pair of "enthusiasts" during a cave tour and were found in "plain sight," John Charlesworth, Heritage Facilitator and the tour leader at the time of the discovery, said in a statement. In 2016, Historic England, a government-sponsored organization...

Hard evidence that the engravings of women and extinct creatures at Creswell Crags are more than 12,800 years old is published today, making them Britain's oldest rock art. Creswell Crags, on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, is riddled with caves which contain preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. Recently, engravings were found on the walls and ceiling depicting animals such as the European Bison, now extinct in Britain, female dancers or birds - depending on the view of the archaeologist - and intimate female body parts. Dating rock art is difficult, especially if there are no charcoal-based black...

Archaeologists unearth Britain's first cave pictures Robin McKie, science editor Sunday June 15, 2003 The Observer (UK) Archaeologists have discovered 12,000-year-old engravings carved by ancient Britons in a cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. The depiction of the animals - which include a pair of birds - is the first example of prehistoric cave art in Britain. The discovery - by Paul Bahn and Paul Pettitt, with Spanish colleague Sergio Ripoll - is set to trigger considerable scientific excitement, for it fills a major gap in the country's archeological record. 'If this is verified, it represents a wonderful discovery,' said Professor...

Unprecedented Ice Age Cave Art Discovered in U.K. John Pickrell in England for National Geographic News August 18, 2004 Vivid frescoes of stampeding bulls, horses, and other animals drawn by Stone Age artisans grace the walls of many European caves. The most spectacular examples are found in Altimera in Spain and Lascaux and Chauvet in France. For many years the total lack of cave art in Britain dating to the same period perplexed researchers. Britain was inhabited, after all. And throughout the Ice Age, it was linked to mainland Europe by a land bridge. Last year researchers discovered a handful...

December 07, 2005 Cave paintings reveal Ice Age artists By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent BRITAIN’S first cave art is more than 12,800 years old, scientific testing has shown. Engravings of a deer and other creatures at Creswell Crags, in Derbyshire, have proved to be genuine Ice Age creations, and not modern fakes, as some had feared. The engravings were found in 2003 at two caves, Church Hole and Robin Hood’s Cave, which lie close together in the Creswell gorge. Palaeolithic occupation deposits dating to the last Ice Age were excavated there in 1875-76, but the art remained unnoticed. Although the...

Ancient engravings found in Somerset cave [07 February 2005] Two members of the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society have discovered an engraving in a cave in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, which may be at least 10,000 years old. Graham Mullan and Linda Wilson, who have spent much of the last ten years studying Palaeolithic cave art, recently began a systematic search of caves in southern Britain in the belief that such works in this country would not simply be confined to those found at Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire. The first results of this study are a series of inscribed crosses found...

Ice Age cave art site preserved The art was probably made by Ice Age hunter-gatherers Work to protect and preserve an Ice Age site in Derbyshire has been completed. The project at the Ice Age cave art centre at Creswell Crags was funded by the East Midlands Development Agency and the county council. It included building new scree banks to show how the gorge would have looked about 10 to 50,000 years ago. A county council spokesperson said archaeologists were consulted during the preservation project to ensure the site's natural beauty was not spoiled. 'Unique site' A £200,000 bridleway, which...

Experts hail elaborately carved cave ceiling With its drooping bill and beady eye, the ancient bird looks like a cross between a podgy curlew and a dodo. The strikingly realistic image was etched into the soft limestone roof a Nottinghamshire cave by a paleolithic artist around 13,000 years ago. He or she (or some contemporary colleague) also carved a menagerie of birds, bison, deer and bears on the same roof in a gallery that has caused the jaws of experts to drop with amazement. These relics of a land still shivering in climatic change came to light in the bright...

Were cavemen painting for their gods? (Filed: 23/02/2005) The meaning of Ice Age art has been endlessly debated, but evidence is increasing that some was religiously motivated, says Paul Bahn At least 70,000 years ago, our ancestors began to adorn their bodies with beads, pendants and perhaps tattoos; by 35,000 years ago, they had begun to paint and engrave animals, people and abstract motifs on cave walls, like those in Lascaux, France, and Altamira in Spain. They sculpted voluptuous figurines in ivory or stone, such as the Venus of Willendorf. Underestimating art: 35,000 years ago, our ancestors began painting representations...

Creswell Crags located in Worsop, UK, represents one site among a significant cluster of cave sites inhabited during the last Ice Age in Britain. Archaeological and environmental evidence excavated from the caves show how the area witnessed dramatic changes in climate at the edge of the northern ice sheets and was populated by Ice Age animals such as hyenas, mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, and migrating herds of reindeer, horse and bison. Archaeology investigations at the caves have uncovered stone, bone and ivory tools which date occupation to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic era. In, addition archaeology have discovered 13000 year old...