Ice Age
The Ice Age was not one endless winter. It was a long chapter of shifting glaciers, grasslands, giant animals and human journeys. Explore what made the planet freeze, how life adapted, and what the frozen past still tells us today.
A World of Ice
During the Ice Age, enormous ice sheets repeatedly advanced and retreated while much of the planet remained surprisingly dry and open.
Giants of the Cold
Mammoths were only part of an extraordinary community of giant mammals that once lived across the Ice Age world.
Predators of the Ice Age
Giant herbivores supported a world of powerful predators, many unlike anything alive today.
Built for the Cold
Surviving an Ice Age winter meant controlling heat, finding food and coping with long seasons of scarcity.
Humans Enter the Ice Age World
Humans did not simply endure Ice Age environments. They learned to use fire, clothing, tools and social cooperation to move into them.
Living With Giants
Humans shared landscapes with mammoths, bison, giant deer and predators that demanded knowledge, teamwork and caution.
Frozen Evidence
Ice, mud, caves and permafrost preserve clues that ordinary fossils often lose, including hair, skin and DNA.
Why the Ice Came and Went
Ice sheets grew and melted because Earth’s orbit, atmosphere, oceans and reflective surfaces amplified one another.
The Great Extinctions
Near the end of the last Ice Age, many large animals vanished, but the reasons were not identical everywhere.
The Ice Age Is Still Around Us
The glaciers retreated, but they left coastlines, lakes, valleys, genes and living species that still shape the modern world.