The Upper Palæolithic Period

(syn; Paleolithic, Palaeolithic)

Appox. 40,000 BC to 10,000 BC

The last (to date!) Ice Age retreats from Britain around 15,000 years ago

The culmination of the last Age at the end of the Upper Palæolithic period marks a turning point of human kind in Britain for as the Ice Sheets retreated around 15,000 years ago they were followed by a new human species called Homo Sapiens. The nature of hominid culture had changed little very the previous millennia but all that was about to change, this was a wholly new culture. If point of fact ability to change was so rapid it created a succession of regional variations and in Europe many differences were created such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Perigordian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian cultures.

Habitation during the Upper Palæolithic still appears to have been largely in caves the most famous and most  archaeologically productive in Britain being Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Sedgemoor, where many bone and flint implements were found

In general terms these cultures exhibited communal hunting and fishing, a rudimentary belief system based on magic and the supernatural and from this grew the first flowering of art and sculpture. By the end of the period they began to build the first dwellings that we would recognise as houses whether these were permanent dwellings we still do not know and to achieve these things the design and quality of their stone, bone, horn wood and ivory tools improved to the extent that they were also capable of making jewellery and other personal adornments.

We know from archaeological remains that they were capable of making boats and harpoons but perhaps the most amazing legacy of these people left us were their cave paintings that are still in evidence in many locations in Europe. In April 2003 the first such cave paintings have been located in Britain sparking off a new frenzied search of our cave systems to find more.