Paleolithic
Old Stone Age

Cave Men?

Most people think 'stone age' = 'cave man'

That is only part of the truth!

Because most of the finds from the early stone age have been found in caves it gave a distorted view of life in the past. Caves were very rarely disturbed, so the evidence lay there intact. If you think about how few caves there are in Britain, you quickly realise that most people would have lived in the open country-side. Even if you look at the very early paleolithic people, before the glaciers, there is evidence for homes in the open. In Russia, frames of mammoth bones have been found, creating quite large 'tents'. Evidence in Britain is rare because we are now a heavily populated country, and the landscape has been modified for thousands of years.

This map gies you an idea of what Britain looked like when the people moved back in after the last ice age

Examples of tools - Flint and Bone (not to scale)