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Creswell Crags

Creswell Crags Discovering cave art in Britain Paul G. Bahn, with Sergio Ripoll, Paul Pettitt and Francisco Muñoz

Most people know about and marvel at the animals painted or engraved during the last Ice Age on walls and ceilings of caves in Continental Europe, particularly in France and Spain. Yet despite a few claims which turned out to be false, Britain’s Upper Palaeolithic caves seemed devoid of art. Convention had it that Britain was so close to the ice sheets that the lives of hunters here were too fraught for any such indulgence. Until now. Paul Bahn and a team including cave art specialists from Spain took a fresh look at the famous caves along the gorge at Creswell Crags, on the NottinghamshireDerbyshire border near Worksop. And there they were – not just one or two engravings but dozens of them! Paul Bahn tells us how the discoveries were made.

Above Engraving of a bison with interpretive drawing below.

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