Ten cut stones that were discovered in England a few years ago are dated back to the last ice age. Researchers discovered the ten artworks of the ice age between 2014 and 2018 at an old hearth at Les Varines in southeastern Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. A team of archaeologists out Newcastle University and the Natural History Museum have tested the “artistic designs” on these limestone ice artworks. Their research concluded that these purely artistic artifacts were created by Magdalenian hunter-gatherer humans some 15,000 years ago, during the last ice age.
Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands, located between England and France. This self-governing dependence on the United Kingdom is known for its fusion of British and French cultures. The ten artworks of the ice age were recovered from a cluster of fireplaces, centuries, wells, and thousands of flints and tools. Together, all of these artifacts show how art was an important part of what the team of researchers calls “the ancient Magdalenian pioneer toolkit,” said Dr Ed Blinkhorn, Senior Geoarchaeologist at University College London and director of excavations at the site. .
The burial site in Jersey where the Magdalenian stone slabs were found. ( Natural History Museum )
Ice age art: creating symbolic relationships with new places
Dr. Blikhorn and his team of researchers have published their findings in the journal PLOS One . Their paper describes the original discovery of the ten ancient, stone plaques in an area that was thought to have been used as a hearth by a local community. These stones are seen as the “first known evidence of artistic expression” in the British Isles. “They are thought to have been carved by the Magdalenian people, an early hunter-gatherer culture that existed from 23,000 to 14,000 years ago. Similar carved stones have been found in Magdalenian places in Spain, Portugal and France. This is the first time such artifacts ever found in the United Kingdom.
A ‘drawing’ of a wild cow found on Jersey’s site. The right side of the image isolates the image of the animal so that one can see it as an individual creature. (S Bello / Natural History Museum )
In an article in the Independent, Dr Chantal Conneller of Newcastle University said the fragments “provide rare evidence of ancient artistic expression” and that the people in Les Varines were probably “pioneering colonizers of the region and creating engraved objects in new settlements may have been a way have the power to create symbolic relationships with new places. ”
The ice age artwork was purely artistic
The geometric designs in these ice age artworks are largely composed of curved markings made with repeated incisions using sharp stone tools. In the new paper, the researchers state it is unlikely that the rules result from a function, as a process. And although some of the designs are far too abstract to identify, it is believed to represent some animals, landscapes and people. And because two markedly different types of marks are present on the faces of the stones, they offer archaeologists new insights into the different artistic processes needed to create the designs.
Another stone slab showing the characteristic geometric lines of the Magdalenians. ( Natural History Museum )
However, Dr. Conneller explains that the designs were only considered “short by their makers” because soft stone engraving creates a powder in the strings that make them visible, but only for a short time. The interpretation of the stones in this connection was the act of engraving itself perhaps more significant than the object itself. Further, microscopic analysis showed that many of the curved lines and concentric designs appear to have been created by “layers as repeated incisions,” which Dr Silvia Bello, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, said, proves that they “a form of pure were artistic expression. ”
The implications of the oldest ice age works of art in Britain
The Pleistocene Epoch is typically defined as beginning about 2.6 million years ago and lasts until about 11,700 years ago. The last ice age, which occurred during this time, created glaciers that covered large parts of our planet. Dr. Conneller explained that the discovery of, and the correct interpretation of, the ten carved ice age art plates is very important to the archaeological community. This is because they were created at a time when humans began migrating north at the end of the last ice age, which was followed by the beginning of the Holocene, the current geological period.
Today, Jersey is known for its beaches, cliff tracks, inland valleys and historic castles. These ice age artifacts, however, according to an interview in the Daily mail with Louise Downie, the director of curation and experience for Jersey Heritage , add thousands of years to the rich art history of Jersey, which currently consists of mostly Celtic wood carvings and 14th-century church wall paintings.
Top image: The most complete of the ten pre-ice art works discovered on Jersey in the English Channel Islands, dating back 15,000 years. Source: Natural History Museum
By Ashley Cowie
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