Ice Age Gallery
Excavations at Victoria Cave have produced a collection of over 3,000 artefacts. From long-extinct animals to Ice Age hunting weapons, these are some of the highlights.
Ice Age megafauna
If there’s one thing Victoria Cave has, it is plenty of bones; the most spectacular of which date back to the Last Interglacial – a warm period sandwiched between two Ice Ages from 130,000 to 125,000 years ago.During this time, spotted hyena were using Victoria Cave as a den. Pollen recovered from their coprolites shows the area was open grassland with small areas of deciduous forest, but the hyenas also built up a deep layer of bone from the animals they hunted and scavenged. Among them are the remains of enormous Ice Age mega-fauna, including giant deer, bison, hippopotamus and now-extinct species of narrow-nosed rhino and straight-tusked elephant, as well as other top predators like lions.
Hyena mandible (jawbone)
Fragment of Hyena (Crocuta crocuta) mandible (Right side zones 1 and 2)

Rhinoceros nasal bone
Nasal bone of a narrow nosed Rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus hemitoechus)

Bison Leg Bone
Extinct bison (Bison priscus) metacarpal from the hyena bone bed, sealed by a large piece of flowstone

Giant Deer Teeth
Megaloceros giganteus upper molar tooth row, from the hyena bone bed, sealed by a large piece of flowstone

Hippopotamus Tusk Fragment
Lower canine tusk fragment of Hippopotamus amphibius, found in the hyena bone bed covered by a stalagmite

Juvenile Elephant Tooth
Palaeoloxodon antiquus molar (still erupting) from the hyena bone bed covered by stalagmite

More to explore...
Continue through the collection