Age of ice

Technically we are living within an Ice Age, inhabiting a warm interglacial period that occurs between colder glacial periods. Today's warm period is known as the Holocene and started about 11,500 years ago.

The last glacial period peaked about 20,000 years ago: the climate was cooler and ice sheets covered large areas of land. It would have been a dramatically different landscape from today's and a harsh place to live.

Imagine a world inhabited by herds of giant woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses, alongside deer with antlers spanning over four metres. A place where our ancestors relied on hunting and gathering as a way of life.

  • Ice age

    How life looked in the cold old days.

    Ice age

  • Woolly mammoths

    Giant hairy elephants adapted to life in the cold.

    Woolly mammoths

  • Ice cycle

    Did the rise of farming prevent an ice age?

    Ice cycle

  • Woolly rhinos

    The rhinoceros with a warm woolly coat and snow-clearing horn.

    Woolly rhinos

  • Icy deaths

    Was an ice age to blame for an extinction 440 million years ago?

    Icy deaths

  • Irish elk

    Impressively large deer with antlers spanning over four metres.

    Irish elk

  • Age of ice

    We are living during a warm period of an ice age.

    Age of ice

Explore prehistoric life

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