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The River Crossing. This part of the tour starts with you, staring at the muddy water below the Millennium Bridge. There isn't actually much to see here - only if you were lucky would you see anything other than water, mud, a few large stones and, possibly, the odd shopping trolley - but it is an important place. |
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At low tide when the mud is cleared, you might see the stones in this photo. They mark the position of a medieval bridge - they also happen to mark an ancient river crossing point.
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Had you been here 11,000 years ago you would have seen a landscape lightly wooded with birch, alder, and rowan trees. The ground behind and to the left would have been marshy - there was a lot of marsh around in those days. There would have been tracks leading to the river, perhaps those of deer, elk, bears, and wolves. Mixed in with the animal tracks you might have seen a few human footprints. |
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| These were the prints of Stone Age hunter-gatherers and they were the people who lived here at the time. To these people - the first to come to Lancaster after the Ice Age - this was the spot where they could cross the river. Indeed, it was the first place after the sea (7 miles down-stream) where the river was fordable at low tide. You had to ford it because, of course, there were no bridges in those days. | |
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