Profile: Hannah Boddy
Creswell Crags is finally getting the chance to tell us about life during the last Ice Age
Hannah Boddy is the development manager/exhibitions and promotions manager at Creswell Crags, the limestone gorge in Nottinghamshire where caves – and the remains inside them – tell the story of the inhabitants of the region between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago. An exhibition, Life on the Edge: Ice Age Frontier, runs at the Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, until 20 September.
What do your jobs entail?
I recently began a Heritage Lottery Fund-backed project investigating the long-term sustainability of the Crags, so half the week is spent on that and the rest on exhibitions and promotions.
What’s in your collection?
We don’t actually own a huge amount of archaeology because it mainly took place in the Victorian era when there was no institution here so everything was dispersed across 42 different museums; a lot is loaned back to us.
The main part is a comparative collection of osteology for study of Ice Age fauna, which is compared with modern lions, hyenas and things like that. For some reason, we have a boa constrictor skeleton that is in pieces and looks like popcorn.
There are also the bones of what a former curator originally thought was a mammoth that were found under a hospital being built in nearby Worksop. It turned out to be a pilot whale. Presumably it had been used as a whalebone arch or something like that as we’re pretty much landlocked around here.
What’s the idea behind the exhibition?
It comes off the back of the Connecting Creswell project, which was aimed at joining up those 42 museums that have artefacts found here. The exhibition looks at the physical environment of the time, explores why people migrated here and how they survived and reveals the wonders of Britain’s oldest rock art, which was discovered here 12 years ago.
How was that discovery made?
Two archaeologists wondered why the people who were creating magnificent rock art 13,000 years ago while spending the winter months in what is now France, Germany and Spain didn’t do any while coming here for the summer. They looked around and found engravings of animals, birds and motifs in Church Hole Cave.
Does Creswell Crags receive the recognition it deserves?
We are on the tentative list for Unesco World Heritage Site status but even people in Sheffield 20 miles away don’t know we’re here. Television has raised our profile
recently, though. Neil Oliver presented a Sacred Wonders of Britain programme here and we’ve also had Escape to the Country and Come Dine With Me, which covers every demographic, I think.
What do your jobs entail?
I recently began a Heritage Lottery Fund-backed project investigating the long-term sustainability of the Crags, so half the week is spent on that and the rest on exhibitions and promotions.
What’s in your collection?
We don’t actually own a huge amount of archaeology because it mainly took place in the Victorian era when there was no institution here so everything was dispersed across 42 different museums; a lot is loaned back to us.
The main part is a comparative collection of osteology for study of Ice Age fauna, which is compared with modern lions, hyenas and things like that. For some reason, we have a boa constrictor skeleton that is in pieces and looks like popcorn.
There are also the bones of what a former curator originally thought was a mammoth that were found under a hospital being built in nearby Worksop. It turned out to be a pilot whale. Presumably it had been used as a whalebone arch or something like that as we’re pretty much landlocked around here.
What’s the idea behind the exhibition?
It comes off the back of the Connecting Creswell project, which was aimed at joining up those 42 museums that have artefacts found here. The exhibition looks at the physical environment of the time, explores why people migrated here and how they survived and reveals the wonders of Britain’s oldest rock art, which was discovered here 12 years ago.
How was that discovery made?
Two archaeologists wondered why the people who were creating magnificent rock art 13,000 years ago while spending the winter months in what is now France, Germany and Spain didn’t do any while coming here for the summer. They looked around and found engravings of animals, birds and motifs in Church Hole Cave.
Does Creswell Crags receive the recognition it deserves?
We are on the tentative list for Unesco World Heritage Site status but even people in Sheffield 20 miles away don’t know we’re here. Television has raised our profile
recently, though. Neil Oliver presented a Sacred Wonders of Britain programme here and we’ve also had Escape to the Country and Come Dine With Me, which covers every demographic, I think.