Amongst its Ice Age treasures stands the mighty woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius — a shaggy titan of the Pleistocene whose kind roamed the frozen steppes of Europe, Asia, and North America until just 4,000 years ago.
The museum’s mammoth skeleton, with its great spiralled tusks curving forward like ivory crescents, is both imposing and oddly elegant.
These animals were close cousins of modern elephants, adapted for cold with thick insulating fur, a layer of fat beneath the skin, and small ears to conserve heat.
Their molars — massive, ridged grinding plates — were built for chewing tough Ice Age grasses across windswept tundra.
Britain itself once hosted mammoths during colder phases of the last Ice Age. As glaciers advanced and retreated, herds wandered across what is now the North Sea basin — then dry land known as Doggerland — and into southern England.
Fossils dredged from gravel pits and offshore sediments remind us that mammoths were not exotic strangers but part of Britain’s own prehistoric fauna.
Standing beneath those sweeping tusks in the museum, you can almost feel the cold breath of the Ice Age. It is a wonderful place to spend the afternoon. If you go, wear comfortable shoes!
