DOWNSPOEM: Lines Composed Upon Recalling that Mammoths Actually Roamed the Slopes of the Downs, as did the Magdalenians (Cave-Painter Types)
This, too, is Arcadia
Where the Woolly Ganesh became the hills
Long-haired trumpeters sat down and said:
“We shall become this place;
It shall become us, dream us,
And we it.”
Mount Caburn, East Sussex, seen from the floodplain south of Lewes. One seems to see the upper profile of a mammoth, the long back, the hump of the head, the trunk extending off to the right.
Magdalenean Cave Painting from Roufignac, around 15,000 BC
A similar profile is presented by Wolstonbury Hill, further west along the Downs, (due North of Brighton) when seen looking west from Ditchling. For a beautiful but rather small photo of
this see en.wikipedia.org/
Mammoth piece in ivory, one of the oldest pieces of art ever found, about 35,000 years old.