Stone Age

People have used the caves in Cheddar Gorge for shelter for 40,000 years. We derive this from evidence found in and around the caves, some of which are still available to examine on-site today.

A visit to Cheddar can help students increase their understanding of Britain’s past, by focusing on how our ancestors would have lived. Take a look below for details of the immersive Stone Age activities we provide and our Museum of Prehistory.

Experience a unique Stone Age school trip in Somerset.

As part of our popular, interactive prehistory package, your children spend time with one of our knowledgeable demonstrators. They can dress up, see how tools and fire were made through demonstrations and looking at replicas, and stand in the cave area where their ancestors would have lived. We provide a specially developed quiz trail to focus their attention and encourage them to look more closely in the museum .

The session time is divided between:

• Live demonstration of flint knapping
• Demonstration of how fire would have been made
• The opportunity to dress in prehistoric style clothing
• Quiz trail provided for children to use in the museum
• Focused tour of the daylight zone of Gough’s Cave (you may then explore the rest of the cave at your own leisure)

The children can ask the costumed demonstrator questions and find out information that interests them about life in the Stone Age. The session length and arrangement varies depending on the number of pupils and the timings of your visit; it is designed for KS2 but can easily be adapted to suit other age groups.

There is an additional cost per child on top of day tickets for this package and it must be pre-booked. For more information on this package please call the team on 01934 742343.

In our museum students can see how weapons and tools were developed over time and view video demonstrations of flint knapping and fire lighting.  They can have a go at the hands-on cave art. Archaeological finds from Cheddar are on display and you can find out about Cheddar Man and how he lived.  

Cheddar Man is famous as Britain’s oldest complete skeleton. Found buried in Gough’s Cave in 1903, he was a Mesolithic hunter-gather living in Cheddar around 10,000 years ago. His remains now find a home at the Natural History Museum in London, but a replica skeleton can be seen in Gough’s Cave.  

It is thought that he was in his twenties when he died.  It is not unusual for mesolithic remains to be found in caves, it is unusual in that he was found buried alone, when it was common at the time to have communal burials.  So it is suggested that either he might have been special in someway or that he may just have curled up and died there.

As a hunter gatherer his diet would have included red deer and aurochs in addition to seeds and nuts collected.

Although discovered over 100 years ago scientists are still learning from the remains.  The cool conditions of the cave and layers of natural mineral deposits helped to preserve Cheddar Man's DNA.  Scientists at the Natural History Museum were able to extract DNA and using a sequencing technique, map what they found against the modern human genome.  With a list of markers identified for physical traits, they then went on to work with a reconstruction team to create a facial likeness.

A channel 4 documentary, The First Brit: The 10,000 Year Old Man, broadcast in February 2018, showed how his likeness was recreated to show us what Cheddar Man would have looked like.