After the glacial period from 180-140,000 years ago, Britain warmed up again and big game (elephant and rhino) returned, but no people – the first time they did not appear in an interglacial. This was possibly due to the barriers formed by the huge rivers (the Thames, Seine and Rhine) that flowed together where the English Channel is today. This dearth of people was finally broken by the arrival of Neanderthals who hunted mammoth, reindeer and horse around 60,000 years ago, when the summers were cooler and the winters arctic. Although Neanderthals probably died out in Britain about 30,000 years ago, prior to their demise Homo Sapiens (Cro-Magnon) entered Northern Europe including Britain (Pembroke). As Homo Sapiens was taller and slimmer than Neanderthals and could not withstanding the cold, he retreated south around 25,000 years ago, prior to the glacial peak of around 24,000 years ago when ice sheets returned to cover Northern Britain.

Paleoglacial Maps showing the gradual recession of
the ice shelves. 16,000 BC also showing dammed
lake, 15,000, 14,000 and 13,000 BC - courtesy
Prof. Chris Clark, University of Sheffield

The weight of ice was so great that the land was depressed and is still rising today. Eastern Scotland has risen 250m since the ice receded. The climate improved briefly around 15,000 years ago and Homo Sapiens returned, and some cave art and a bone engraved with a horse’s head has been discovered at Cresswell Grags of around 13,000 years ago, but the colder period known as “Younger Dryas” drove them out again until they returned for the last time 11,500 years ago.

Since the first human set foot in Britain he has been driven out at least seven times - sometimes for periods of over 100,000 years. Because of all this instability - the ice sheets, the associated huge melt water lakes and the cold dry weather, there is no early evidence of agriculture or pottery in Britain. Its latest continuous period of occupation has been a relatively short 10,000 years, so humans in Britain lacked the continuity that was afforded to the occupants of the warmer areas of the old world. Accordingly most advances in technology have been transferred from mainland Europe.