Apologies for cross-posting

Dear All

The website www.creswell-crags.org.uk/virtuallytheiceage was finally
launched at the British Museum by Mr Dennis Skinner MP on Tuesday 17th July.
Although the site has been online for some time the launch marks the
completion of the major development phase of the project. The News Release
follows below.

Kind regards

Ian

Ian Wall
Creswell Heritage Trust
Creswell Crags Visitor Centre, Crags Road, Welbeck, Worksop, Notts. S80 3LH.
tel: 01909 720378, fax: 01909 724726
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web:http://www.creswell-crags.org.uk

News Release

News Release

The web site, Virtually the Ice Age, was officially launched on Tuesday 17th
July at The British Museum by Mr Dennis Skinner MP.

The event marked an imaginative partnership between The British Museum,
Creswell Heritage Trust and Derby Museum and Art Gallery, which has taken
the internet into the Old Stone Age. Supported by Resource through the DCMS
IT Challenge Fund, the European Regional Development Fund and The Coalfields
Regeneration Trust, the new Virtually the Ice Age website is designed to
take archaeology out of museums and give it back to its place of origin and
the wider world.

Creswell Crags, a beauty spot in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire at the heart
of what was one of Britain's major coalfields, is one of Europe's most
important archaeological landscapes, preserving the only cluster of Ice Age
cave sites in the UK. Between 70,000 and 10,000 years ago the caves and
fissures of the Crags provided shelter for Neanderthal and anatomically
modern people through a crucial period of human evolution. Since the 1870s,
excavations have produced a wealth of evidence from which can be interpreted
what life was like for hunters at the edge of Europe. Britain's oldest known
work of art, a fine engraving of a horse found in Robin Hood Cave (and now
in the British Museum's collections) connects us with the great era of cave
painting on the continent and provides the banner for the website.

Users of the website are given access to a wide range of fascinating
evidence collected and used by archaeologists over many years and now kept
in over thirty museums around the UK. Through the interactive pages, people
of all ages will be able to explore in detail the skills and adaptability
which were so essential for human survival in the hostile environment of the
Ice Age.

Visiting the website will allow you to:

Experience a virtual walk around the Creswell Crags limestone gorge and
explore the chambers and passages of Robin Hood Cave and the caves of Pin
Hole and Church Hole.

Explore the main themes of the Ice Age with a closer look at:

    people from the Stone Age who camped at Creswell Crags more than 10,000
years ago.

    the changes in the climate and environment during the last 120,000
years.

    the archaeologists who excavated the caves in the Creswell area

    visit the range of excavated finds from the caves through 'Exploring
Objects' which include animal bones, stone
    and bone tools, and some of the earliest bone art engravings. Also
explore the excavation photographs, plans
    and diary accounts from the Victorian and later periods when the caves
were investigated.

    keep in touch through the message board where you can talk to museums,
archaeologists and each other.

    keep an eye on the latest news from the world of Ice Age archaeology, as
well as future events and exhibitions
    which will be worth checking out through the 'News and Views' section.

    find out how local groups and schools in the Creswell area are
celebrating their local archaeology and history
    through the 'Community Pages'

    plan a visit to the Creswell area to coincide with local events at the
major attractions through links to 'Visiting
    the Creswell Area', 'Discover the Meden Valley' and the events page.