Making Art in the Ice Age
The Story of How Our Ancestors Made Images
By (author) Paul Bahn By (author) Elle Clifford Foreword by Antony Gormley
Paperback (Published)
(November 2025)
ISBN: 9781805830887
6.85 x 9.69 inches
Price: $20.99
In stock
This colourful and informative book, aimed at younger readers, explores Ice Age art, its discovery, creation, and authenticity. More than decoration, it offers deep insight into early humans, their lives, and beliefs. Though meanings remain mysterious, the art connects us to our ancestors, preserving their stories across millennia.
The extraordinary phenomenon of Ice Age art endured for over 30,000 years of our prehistory. This book will show you how the art was discovered, how it was made, how we know its age and if it’s genuine. But this art is much more than pictures and paint – it tells us more about our early ancestors than bones and tools ever will. Life during the Ice Age was a huge part of our human journey, and the people who lived then, by painting on cave walls and engraving their myths on animal bones, have reached out to us down the millennia with their stories and memories. It is unlikely we will ever know the meanings of the simple handprints or the animal silhouette paintings, or the ideas that were shared in great cave wall murals, but they are likely to be profound. And despite our inability to understand the messages, we can still marvel at the valuable gifts these Ice Age artists have bestowed on us.
Foreword
Deep time line
How was cave art discovered?
What did they draw and paint?
Drawing humans
Portable art
Techniques in cave art
What did they use to make art?
Images outside caves
How old is the art?
Fakes and forgeries
Can we know what the art means?
Conclusion
Glossary
Appendix: Further reading
Image credits
- By (author) Paul Bahn
- By (author) Elle Clifford
- Foreword by Antony Gormley
'...Making Art in the Ice Age provides enough detail to inspire children to learn more about Ice Age life and living, perhaps even to try making copies of the artworks, -though not in caves! I think this book will be a valuable and essential purchase for public libraries and for school libraries. Any schoolteachers contemplating teaching about Ice Age people and their world would do well to read this book first.' – John Shea (2026)
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'Over the course of 94 colourful and well-illustrated pages, Bahn and Clifford have taken this monumental and deeply mysterious part of our human story and succeeded in creating an accessible, engaging, and fascinating resource.' – Simon Norton (2026): Current World Archaeology #136
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‘Making Art in the Ice Age provides a basic framework for young readers with a burgeoning interest in understanding the extraordinary explosion of art that heralded the dawn of human creativity. As such, it will be a useful reference work for school libraries.’ - Danny A. Brass (2026): Underground Movement Volume 26, no. 4
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'This book succeeds in reaching its intended audience of younger readers through accessible language, an image-led layout, a detailed glossary, and thoughtful concluding discussion questions. It would work equally well in classrooms or for independent learning.' – Hanna McNulty (2026): Current Archaeology 434
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