Tristan Hughes goes on an epic road trip across Britain in search of some of the best Ice Age sites and landscapes in the country. Spanning almost a million years of prehistory.

In episode 1, he begins his journey on the North Norfolk Coast, at Happisburgh Beach (an epicentre of ice age discoveries), to learn about some of the earliest Ice Age archaeology from anywhere in the UK. It was on that beach that evidence for the first humans in Britain from some 900,000 years ago was discovered: footprints from almost a million years ago, left behind by an early species we still know very little about. But these footprints are just the beginning. From making 500,000 year old handaxes to getting hands on with a woolly mammoth tooth, we find out why Norfolk is such a hotspot in Britain’s Ice Age story.

From Norfolk, Tristan heads south to West Sussex to learn more about Britain’s earliest hunters: how wooden weapons and simple stone tools helped them hunt and butcher the animals they shared this land with. Including mammoths.

Travelling across the country, a venture to Wales follows. Starting off in Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) and the beautiful Cwm Idwal, where a living relic of the Ice Age still endures to this day. Before journeying south to Pembroke Castle, where an exciting new dig is hoping to find out more about one of the most mysterious chapters in Britain’s Ice Age story: the arrival of modern humans, Homo sapiens, more than 40,000 years ago.

And to finish it all off, an adventurous pilgrimage to one of the most difficult to reach Ice Age sites in Britain: Paviland Cave, the home of Britain’s first known burial.

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Want to learn more about the Ice Age? Check out Tristan’s podcast on History Hit, The Ancients, where we have a special on location episode at Kent’s Cavern. Affectionately nicknamed as ‘Britain’s First Home’, Kent’s Cavern is the site of the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens in Britain. Listen to The Ancients for free wherever you get your podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988