Explore the Histories of Northamptonshire Interactive Timeline

Geologic to Prehistoric

Before 43CE

Inhabiting the ancient geological landscapes shaped by tropical seas, ice and climate change, early human activity in the area lays the foundations of settlement and life in our county.

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175 million years ago

Ironstone

Northamptonshire’s ironstone was formed from iron-rich sediments in the Jurassic period. Quarried since Roman times, ironstone has shaped our landscape, fuelled the county's industry and built our houses.

168 million years ago

Jurassic Fossil Kallirhynchia sharpi

168 million years ago, Northamptonshire lay beneath a warm sea teeming with marine life, including this fossil brachiopod Kallirhynchia sharpi.

168 million years ago

Screw Pine Fossil

This screw pine fossil is a rare type specimen. Parts of Jurassic Northamptonshire were submerged in a shallow warm sea and tropical plants thrived on the nearby land.

166 million years ago

Dinosaur Footprint

This 166-million-year-old dinosaur footprint cast, found in Irchester, is Northamptonshire’s first dinosaur evidence, likely made by a Megalosaurus

Up to 11,700 years ago

Mammoth Tooth

This tooth belonged to a woolly mammoth that roamed Northamptonshire during the Great Ice Age as recently as 11,700 years ago.

Between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago

Woolly Rhinoceros Bone

This ulna (leg bone) comes from a woolly rhinocerus that lived in Northamptonshire during the Pliocene and Pleistocene ice Age.

Upper Palaeolithic c. 10,000 years ago

Palaeolithic Lyngby Axe

The only example of a Lyngby axe found in Britain, this multi-purpose tool was used by people in the Upper Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age).

Reindeer antler or Lyngby axe from Earls Barton, Northamptonshire

Mesolithic c. 9600 - 4000 BCE

Mesolithic Flint Microlith

Flint microlith - small stone tool made and used by nomadic hunters gatherers living in the Nene Valley during the Middle Stone Age.