Map sources for Creswell Crags at grid reference SK536741

Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border, in the Midlands of England. The cliffs of the ravine contain several caves that were occupied during the last ice age, between around 43,000 and 10,000 years ago. Download high resolution version (1802x2589, 189 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Worksop Categories: GFDL images | GBdot ... Download high resolution version (1802x2589, 189 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Worksop Categories: GFDL images | GBdot ... The British national grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references commonly used in Great Britain, different from using latitude or longitude. ... Limey shale overlaid by limestone. ... Grand Canyon, Arizona A canyon, or gorge, is a valley walled by cliffs. ... Nottinghamshire (abbreviated Notts) is an English county in the East Midlands, which borders South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. ... Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, which boasts some of Englands most attractive hill and mountain scenery. ... The midlands of a territory are its central regions. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity... Alternate meanings: Cave (disambiguation) The outside world viewed from a cave A cave is a natural underground void large enough for an adult human to enter. ... Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400 000 years For the animated movie, see Ice Age (movie). ...

The caves contain occupation layers with evidence of flint tools from the Mousterian, proto-Solutrean, Creswellian and Maglemosian cultures. They were seasonally occupied by nomadic groups of people during the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. Evidence of Neolithic, Bronze Age. Roman and post-medieval activity has also been found there. The main phases of stone age occupation were at around 43,000 BC then in a period between 30,000 and 28,000 BC and then again around 10,000 BC. Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to style of flint tools (or industry) dating to the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age. ... The Solutrean industry was an advanced flint tool making style of the Upper Palaeolithic. ... Creswellian is a British Palaeolithic culture named after the type site of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire. ... Maglemosian is the name given to a culture of the early Mesolithic period in Northern Europe. ... In archaeology, culture refers to either of two separate but allied concepts: An archaeological culture is a pattern of similar artefacts and features found within a specific area over a limited period of time. ... The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic – lit. ... The Mesolithic (Greek mesos=middle and lithos=stone or the Middle Stone Age) is the period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. ... The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. ... Principal sites in Roman Britain Roman Britain is the term applied to the historical period when Britain was under Roman rule, usually considered AD 44 to 410. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

A bone engraved with a horse's head and other worked bone items along with the remains of a wide variety of prehistoric animals have been found in excavations from 1875 to the present day. The site is open to the public and there is a visitor's centre. 1875 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

In 2003, engravings were found on the walls and roofs of some of the caves - the only known examples of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain. Their subject matter is representations of animals including bison and several different bird species. The engravers seem to have made use of the naturally uneven cave surface in their carvings and it is likely that they relied on the early morning sunlight entering the caves to illuminate the art. 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The most occupied caves were:

• Mother Grundy's Parlour, which has produced numerous flint tools and split bones and was occupied until the Mesolithic;
• Robin Hood's Cave, from which was recovered the horse head-engraved bone and also evidence that its occupants were hunting and trapping woolly rhinoceroses and arctic hares;
• The Pin Hole, a prehistoric hyena den and also occupied by Neandertals. Finds include a bone engraved with a human figure and an ivory pin with etched lines;
• Church Hole, which has more that 80 engravings on its walls and was occupied intermittently until Roman times.

It was featured on the 2005 TV programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of the Midlands. Flint tools were made by stone age peoples worldwide. ... Binomial name Coelodonta antiquitatis Blumenbach, 1807 The Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that survived the last ice age. ... Binomial name Lepus timidus Linnaeus, 1758 The Mountain Hare (Lepus timidus) is a hare, which is largely adapted to polar and mountainous habitats. ... Genera Crocuta Hyaena Parahyaena Proteles Hyenas (or Hyænas) are moderately large terrestrial carnivores native to Africa and Asia, and members of the family Hyaenidae. ... Binomial name Homo neanderthalensis King, 1864 The Neanderthal or Neandertal was a species of genus Homo (Homo neanderthalensis) that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 230,000 to 29,000 years ago (in the Middle Palaeolithic, early Stone Age). ... Seven Natural Wonders is a television programme that aired on BBC Two from 3 May to 20 June 2005. ...

External links

• Creswell Crags website
• BBC News article on the cave art