By Amanda Hallay

Forty-thousand years ago, Planet Earth was plunged into what we now term  ‘The Ice Age’.  A slight shift in the earth’s access – pushing it further away from the sun – brought about dramatic changes in the climate, turning the lush, tropical paradise that once was into an unforgiving tundra of snow and ice.  The entire continent of Europe was effected by The Ice Age, with France at the centre of Early Man’s biggest struggle for survival.

By use of state-of-the-art computer wizardry, we have recreated Ice Age France, giving – for perhaps the first time – a brief glimpse of what life might have been like for our own, early ancestors. (If they were French.)

Early Man shared vast, icy tundra with Woolly Mammoths, each competing for tickets to the Matisse-Picasso exhibition in their relentless struggle for survival.

The hunt for food was Early Frenchman’s top priority.

Snow covered palm trees are but a small reminder of the tropical paradise (with dinosaurs) of pre-Ice Age Paris.

Fierce, saber-toothed cats roamed the icy planes.

Evidence that Early Frenchmen kept themselves warm by huddling ‘round a Gitane.

Polar bears were a common sight in Ice Age épiceries.

Earth gradually warmed up again, the ice melted, and with it went many of the beautiful creatures who once inhabited this cold, unforgiving terrain. Franco Sapiens, however, are still with us. They adapted to change. They weathered other cold, unforgiving epochs (Impressionism, the Nouvelle Vague). They developed their own, impenetrable language, learnt basic skills (like shrugging and tying to act ‘chic’), and – in time – many of them actually learnt how to walk upright.

In short, Franco Sapien did what the Woolly Mammoth and Saber-toothed cat could not.

He survived.

(Unfortunately.)