In South East France, there are magnificent cave paintings, probably used in rituals, dating to 31,000 years ago, while other cave paintings were found in South America dated around 10,000 years ago. These cave paintings specifically portray aspects of the world around the artists and were probably highly symbolic. Interestingly they depicted perspective, which was then lost around 10,000 years ago until Roman times and then lost again until the Renaissance. In some cases lumps of clay were stuck on cave walls and used for modelling, making the artist familiar with some of clay’s characteristics. For example, two fantastic bison were modelled in clay in a cave in France dated to 17,000 years ago. It is also believed that to obtain the pigments for some of the cave paintings the artists would have had to raise the processing temperature to at least 1000 degrees centigrade. Even more remarkable, but perhaps connected, was the discovery that 30,000 years ago Homo Sapiens made small, portable, ritualistic figurines out of fired clay, such as the Venus of Dolni Vestonice. So, real pottery was one of the very earliest art forms of modern humans, and was produced at a time when the Neanderthals still may have been surviving in parts of Europe.

Venus of Dolni Vestonice,
Czechoslovakia - source
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1.9 Northern Europe and Britain to 10,000 years ago

Northern Europe does not feature in the early development of civilisation described later. The reason for this is that, over the past million years this region has been subject to rapid and severe climate and environmental changes, usually influenced by the Gulf Stream that sometimes changed dramatically in as little as ten years. For much of the last million years Britain was a peninsula of mainland Europe, rather than an island, making it accessible to plants and animals – including people – when the weather permitted. However, several times humans were driven out by the cold and ice to return after it had become warmer again. Between 900,000 and 11,500 years ago, (when the present interglacial began), Britain was inhabited only 20% of the time, and between 180,000 and 70,000 years ago there is no evidence of any people at all, even though the climate was hospitable and other animals were there.

Evidence of the first humans to inhabit Britain comes from their stone tools. These were Homo Erectus living as early as 900,000 years ago, dated from stone tool evidence in Norfolk, and again around 700,000 years ago when Britain was 3-8 degrees Centigrade warmer than the present, rather similar to the present Mediterranean region, but wetter. There was abundant animal life, including some large ones such as hippos, rhino, bison and sabre-toothed tigers. This was then followed by a cold period when Homo Erectus inevitably retreated back into Southern Europe, as he had not yet adapted to surviving in a cold climate. Homo Heidelbergensis replaced him in Britain about 500,000 years ago, with evidence of the butchery of large animals such as elephant and rhino (Boxgrove man). A most severe cold spell then occurred about 450,000 years ago when much of Britain as far south as London was covered by an ice sheet one mile deep, driving the people out again. Around 400,000 years ago more developed pre-Neanderthals inhabited a warmer Britain (Swanscombe), bringing with them the use of fire for cooking, but just 20,000 years later they were driven out again. Humans tentatively returned around 320 and 240,000 years ago, but there is not a great deal of detailed evidence, although in the latter period Early Neanderthals were active in North Wales.