Humans post ice age within the UK

[wilderlore]

Tonight I was discussing over a pint with some friends how humans came to be in the UK after the last ice age. My argument was that humans followed deer for food and then became trapped on the island once the ice thawed; I remember finding evidence for this but cannot remember what it exactly was. My friend argued against me as i had no evidence for it; has anyone got any evidence of how man ended up within the UK after the last ice age about 10,000 years ago?

He agreed with someone who argued that an edible algae could of grown on ice which grows on ice today, although people around the table did agree with me when i said this couldn't of been the sole food for people within the UK (he saw this on a TV documentary, this was backed up by another friend who also saw this on the same documentary). Does anyone know of any other reason for our early existence within the UK?

Ste

 

[British Red]

You win the pub fight!

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2003/11/1103_031103_britainrepopulation2.html

...but you now owe me a beer

 

[Toddy]

It's believed that humans hunted onto the ice, and around the ice; there were channels within it, rivers in the seas kind of thing, as the ice age started to ease. That's over 15,000 years ago. We know of earlier human activity in England nearly 30,000 years ago.
However the separation of Great Britain from the continental mass only happened about 8,500 years ago.

Despite all the supposed invasions and waves of incoming settlers to the British Isles, the most recent DNA analysis shows that about 80% of the inhabitants of the British Isles are descended from just a few thousand people who were here as the ice finally retreated.

As for food.....shore and sea marshes are incredibly rich hunting grounds, especially when the population isn't in the millions. There's food available, and it's good food, all year round.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Ogri the trog]

From memory and again from unquote-able sources,

There have been seven previous attempts at making settlement in what is now the UK going back more than half a million years! In each case, hunters would have followed migrating herds over the land bridge that was the North Sea from Europe. Permanent habitation in each of the previous attempts has been thwarted by subsequent "Ice Ages".

It all means that we are currently in the eighth habitation phase or "between Ice ages"!

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[John Fenna]

A good book on the subject is "The Origins of the British" by S Openheimer

 

[boatman]

There is a very good book on early Britons "Homo Britannicus The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain" by Chris Stringer, it is quite cheap on Amazon now. Grown-up but not too academic in style. Covers about 750,000 years.

The switch of hunting techniques required with climate changes is very interesting and a good example is given in "Testimony of the Spade" by Geoffrey Bibby, a history of the past and of archaeology, really cheap on Amazon. He writes that reindeer hunters developed a harpoon point from reindeer antlers that killed reindeer efficiently but with the growth of forests as the climate changed red deer became the prey. However although you can kill a red deer with a reindeer harpoon point if you then use the same technique to make a similar point from red deer antler it might well fail on a red deer and a new design must be made. Easier then to migrate north with the reindeer for some.

He also shows that Arctic circle pre-history is fascinating in its own right. For example, illustrations showing a circle around the heart area and a line to the mouth of different illustrated prey animals exist right round the arctic linking the Americas and Eurasia. Bibby is a brilliant writer and though newer discoveries have moved on our knowledge he is still worth reading especially his "Four Thousand Years Ago".

 

[wilderlore]

thanks for these great sources guys

Ste

 

[sam_acw]

I really don't recommend the Homo Britannicus book - it was a real disappointment. Far better is Britain BC.

 

[Dave]

It's believed that humans hunted onto the ice, and around the ice; there were channels within it, rivers in the seas kind of thing, as the ice age started to ease. That's over 15,000 years ago. We know of earlier human activity in England nearly 30,000 years ago.
However the separation of Great Britain from the continental mass only happened about 8,500 years ago.

Despite all the supposed invasions and waves of incoming settlers to the British Isles, the most recent DNA analysis shows that about 80% of the inhabitants of the British Isles are descended from just a few thousand people who were here as the ice finally retreated.

As for food.....shore and sea marshes are incredibly rich hunting grounds, especially when the population isn't in the millions. There's food available, and it's good food, all year round.

cheers,
Toddy

Thats very interesting, and not what the politically correct BBC would have us believe!

I once saw a documentary where the mitochondrial dna was taken from cheddar village, near to where the cheddar man was found, and some locals were his direct descendants!

Thats truly amazing when you consider that the Cheddar mans DNA was dated as 7150 BC!!!!

I also read that as homo sapiens moved out of Africa, each generation only progressed about five miles from the last generation, over the course of their entire lives.

 

[boatman]

I really don't recommend the Homo Britannicus book - it was a real disappointment. Far better is Britain BC.

Have both and enjoyed both. They really cover separate areas of study with Oppenheimer also a must read although his take on Proto-English is by far the most interesting part of his book.

 

[sandbender]

"...Despite all the supposed invasions and waves of incoming settlers to the British Isles, the most recent DNA analysis shows that about 80% of the inhabitants of the British Isles are descended from just a few thousand people who were here as the ice finally retreated..."

"...Thats very interesting, and not what the politically correct BBC would have us believe!..."

It is worthy bearing in mind that just because you have DNA that connects you with the folks chasing deer and eating hazelnuts at the end of the last ice age, you will also probably have the DNA of most of the subsequent peoples too.

"...I once saw a documentary where the mitochondrial dna was taken from cheddar village, near to where the cheddar man was found, and some locals were his direct descendants!.."

A similar TV program once tested four men from London to find out roughly when they shared a common ancestor. They were, a white guy, a black guy, a chap whose parents immigrated from India and a man whose grandparents were Japanese.

The white guy and the black guy shared a common 'grandfather' about five hundred years ago, they both shared an ancestor with the Japanese guy around twenty thousand years ago and all four had a common ancestor around thirty thousand years ago.

 

[crosslandkelly]

A good book on the subject is "The Origins of the British" by S Openheimer

John, I think the prepositions in that book were quite explosive.

 

[boatman]

John, I think the prepositions in that book were quite explosive.

Openheimer's is a necessary work because a lot of British, specifically English, history has become moribund with the almost universal acceptance of the "Advent of the Anglo-Saxons" as true despite glaring anomalies that are rarely discussed let alone properly investigated. There was no ethnic cleansing of the "Celtic" population for a start.

 

[Stroller]

Fisherman regularly pull up 'ice age' artifacts from the North Sea suggesting evidence of a landbridge which was washed away as the ice melted. The English legged it to the left and the French to the right which is the earliest explanation for driving on the left side of the road.
The discovery channel recently suggested that archaeological evidence on Mediterranean islands suggests settlements much earlier than previously thought, suggesting that humankind was able to navigate quite significant distances over water long before the ice age ended.
If you look at London geology, the glacial clays stop at about the Thames, which means, potentially, Kent through to Cornwall could have been continually occupied throughout the last ice age.

Which does not really explain the hippo bones found in Trafalgar square.......

 

[crosslandkelly]

Openheimer's is a necessary work because a lot of British, specifically English, history has become moribund with the almost universal acceptance of the "Advent of the Anglo-Saxons" as true despite glaring anomalies that are rarely discussed let alone properly investigated. There was no ethnic cleansing of the "Celtic" population for a start.

oops.I think I meant Robert.

 

[boatman]

"A Fairweather Eden: Life in Britain Half a Million Years Ago as Revealed by the Excavations at Boxgrove" by Mike Pitts is another popular book if you want to investigate life before later ice ages.

 

[boatman]

oops.I think I meant Robert.

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" sort of thing?

 

[Ben98]

Speaking geologically we are still in an ice age as there is still ice on the land, we are just coming out of it though (all the glaciers and icecaps are melting)
For reference we are in the Pleistocene ice age period
I hope this is of any help
Ben

Sent using the force

 

[crosslandkelly]

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" sort of thing?

Thats the one.

 

[boatman]

At least we know why the people of the Plasticene Age failed as their weapons just wouldn't hold an edge.