Reindeer camp

This brief piece features a field recording made on 2nd January, 2006, at the site of the Reindeer Camp at Hengistbury Head, Dorset. This is one of the largest Palaeolithic sites in Britain, and is the place where hunting communities gathered, camped and produced flint tools together around 12,500 years ago. At that time, the site would have afforded excellent views over the floodplain of several major rivers, where herds of reindeer migrated to the west for spring calving. Today, all of this is many metres underwater, as a result of the rise in sea level that occurred at the close of the last ice age. Then, the nearest coastline would have been hundreds of miles away, whereas today the sea is eroding the cliffs on which the site is located. Looking out over the English Channel from this point provides a powerful insight into the extent of climate change that has occurred here in the past, and the impact that this must have had on human communities. The recording features a conversation with my eight-year-old son, Arthur, who may himself live to see substantial changes in the world's climate.

Click here for soundfile (MP3)

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