【ゆっくり解説】英国が先史生物の王国だった5億年――なぜ恐竜・海の怪物・マンモスはこの大地で繁栄したのか？

The land of Britain holds a history of prehistoric life spanning over 500 million years, from dinosaurs and giant marine reptiles to mammoths and Neanderthals. This video traces the lost world revealed by fossils and geological strata left behind in Britain, from Cambrian trilobites to Cretaceous dinosaurs and giant mammals of the Ice Age. When people think of Britain, many may picture the Roman army, the Industrial Revolution, the British Empire, and the history of world wars. However, long before humankind began to record history in writing, a completely different world existed in the land that would later become known as Britain. In the Paleozoic seas, trilobites, Pterygotus, and Brontoscorpio lived, and in the humid forests of the Carboniferous period, Arthropleura and Meganeura grew to gigantic sizes. During the Mesozoic Era, dinosaurs such as Pendradreig, Megalosaurus, Baryonyx, Iguanodon, and Cetiosaurus roamed the land of Britain, while Ichthyosaurus, Liopleurodon, and Rheathys reigned supreme in the seas. Then, in the Cenozoic Era, after the dinosaurs disappeared, Britain saw the emergence of Gastornis, Diacodexis, woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, Megaloceros, cave lions, Neanderthals, and modern humans. The true history of Britain is not just about kings, wars, and empires. Beneath lies an unimaginably long natural history, where sea monsters, giant insects, dinosaurs, and colossal creatures of the Ice Age once roamed.