Ice Age Brighton Ice Age

All about Ice Age Brighton Ice Age What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘Ice Age’? Make a list with your partner. Ice Age? People call it an ice Why do age because thick people call it sheets of ice, called the Ice Age? glaciers, cover lots of the earth’s surface. We are still technically in the Ice Age now, but are in an ‘interglacial’ period, meaning temperatures are slightly higher. So just how long ago are we talking? 5,000 years 2.5 million ago? to 11,000 1,000 years years ago? ago? It’s safe to say that’s quite a long time ago then! Ice Age Bronze Age Roman Black Rock Hove Barrow Springfield Road 220,000 years ago 3,500 years ago 2,000 years ago Neolithic Iron Age Anglo Saxon Whitehawk Hollingbury Stafford Road 5,700 years ago 2,800 years ago 1,400 years ago Here’s how the Ice Age fits into our local timeline – it’s the oldest period we will look at. How does this period fit into worldwide prehistory? Use of fibres First to produce Invention pyramids Ice Age Iron Age First Black Rock clothing of wheel built Hollingbury Writing 220,000 years ago 35,000 years ago 5,500 years ago 4,700 years ago 2,800 years ago 2,000 years ago First Homo Neolithic Hieroglyphic Bronze Age Romans Anglo sapiens Whitehawk Hove Barrow Springfield Road 5,700 years ago script 3,500 years ago 2,000 years ago Saxons Africa Stafford Road 200,000 years ago developed 1,400 years ago 5,100 years ago Find out about the Ice Age 1. Another species of human It’s time to use your beginning with N populated investigative and IT the planet at that time. What skills to go on a fact- were they called? finding mission about 2. What daily tasks would life in the Ice Age… people have had in Ice Age society? Did this vary depending on whether it was a warm or a cold stage? 3. Which animals would have been around in this area at the time? Did this change depending on whether it was a warm or a cold stage? 4. What would people have eaten and how would they have got this food? On the left is the face of a Neanderthal female. On the right is the face of an early Modern human male. What differences do you notice? Does anything surprise you about the way they look? Did you know we still share up to 4% of our DNA with Neanderthal people? Even though the Ice Age generally meant cold temperatures, there were also warm, or ‘interglacial’ periods. In fact, evidence of both ‘interglacial’ and ‘glacial’ periods can still be seen somewhere in Brighton & Hove. Does Brrrr! anybody know where? It’s called Black Rock. The red pin on the map marks exactly where. Lots of you will have been there. What’s there now? In these old postcards of the area, showing the cliff before the Marina was built, you can see a stripy formation in the rock. 220,000 years ago the Marina as we know it today would have been under water. The darker coloured line you can see in these pictures (which you can still see today!) would have been a shingle beach. At the time the shingle beach was formed, Brighton was in a warm (interglacial) stage, and we think Neanderthal people were hunting big game in the area. These included horse, red deer and even mammoth. The climate started cooling, the sea retreated and shifts in the Earth’s If it’s a beach, surface pushed the beach further up and inland. why is it so high Over time the beach has up in the rock? been covered in layers and layers of chalk sludge and other claylike deposits blown in by the wind. Nowadays it is a kind of secret beach – one you could only see if you knew exactly what you were looking for. It must have been quite strange at the time! At Brighton Museum we’re lucky enough to have a handaxe that was in use 220,000 years ago when Black Rock was still a beach. Why is it How can you tell a handaxe called a from another, handaxe? similar rock? How do you List all the think it was different uses it made? might have had for people living in the Ice Age. What might it Can you think of any feel like to modern tools you use hold? every day? Which What does this would you find it tool tell us about hardest to live the lives of people without? in Ice Age Brighton? People have even discovered some Prehistoric art from later on in the Ice Age period! No paintings have been discovered in Brighton & Hove yet, but we’re always looking… What do you think these artists were trying to say? And how did they see to paint so clearly in the dark caves? Get into a group of four. Choose one of the group to be the ‘messenger’. The messenger’s aim is to Can you tell a communicate an ancient story without message to the rest of the group words? using pictures alone. Your message must be one that somebody living in Brighton in Ice Age times would be likely to want to share. If you’re stuck you could try: • Has anybody seen my handaxe? • I killed a huge deer today • I have found a new cave we can shelter in You will need: Create some • Paint (only in the colours cave art! ancient people would have had available – black, red, yellow, white and brown) • Sandpaper • Some natural ‘brushes’ (twigs, leaves, feathers) Getting creative: Congratulations • Scrumple and unscrumple – you’re your piece of sandpaper officially an (this will make your painting surface more cave- ancient artist! like) • Use your assortment of natural ‘brushes’ (as well as your fingers) to apply your ancient design (look to the examples on the previous slide for some inspiration) Now that you know a bit more about the Ice Age, next time you’re at the Marina doing your shopping look up at the cliff behind Asda. You can just about make out the line of shingle beach from 220,000 years ago suspended in the cliff line. And, if you look REALLY carefully, you might even see a woolly mammoth tusk poking out! Thanks for downloading. See you soon! Thank you to A-Z for the kind permission to reproduce map on slide 11. Illustration on title page by Jennifer Khatun. Wolves and illustration on slide 15 by Fiona Redford. .

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