Tom Björklund

The event takes place in north-western Italy near the Arene Candide cave over twelve thousand years ago. A young girl holds a toddler firmly in her arms while an adult woman tightly binds the child’s head with the aim of influencing how the child’s skull will develop.

One of the illustrations I made for the article by Tommaso Mori et al. on cranial modification in stone age Italy.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A male House sparrow hopping on the ground. World Sparrow Day is celebrated every year on March 20.

House sparrow. World Sparrow Day was celebrated yesterday (march 20), emphasising the important role sparrows have in their ecosystems, and sadly, also a reminder of the dramatic decline of sparrow populations basically everywhere.

A blue eyed, brown skinned Stone Age girl sitting by the water surrounded by fishing equipment, mallard ducks and hazelnuts, in what is now Denmark. She is holding a piece of birch pitch gum in her hand. From the ancient gum researchers were able to find DNA from the person who had chewed it, and even from the food she had probably eaten shortly before.

I noticed that the dear girl is out in the public again, and this time in association with a news story about a study on the skin colour changes of prehistoric Europeans over time. So here she is, Lola, the Danish birch pitch chewing gum girl.

Money is tight now thanks to some unexpected expenses
So here’s me bumping my gumroad. -.-

I have some 3d models and my procreate fur brushes available on my gumroad at

villes.gumroad.com

Thank you for your support!

A Mesolithic hunter capturing Sardinian pikas with a net. On the ground a large Charonia shell, which was used as an instrument.

Hunting extinct giant pika in Sardinia. From the book "La preistoria in Sardegna".

A curly haired and blue eyed Mesolithic boy holding a headwear decorated with animal teeth in one hand and a wild puppy under his other arm.

Wild puppy

Very entertaining. And interesting observation.

Great!

A Stone Age woman dressed in leather and fur clothing is standing sideways. Her headwear is decorated with the bill and feathers of a great crested grebe. She also wears a necklace made of teeth of several animal species. A pair of deer hooves is hanging below the necklace.

Illustration based on the Mesolithic burial at Gøngehusvej 7 in Vedbæk, Denmark.

Väldigt vackert!

Heavens, Rafael! But thank you so much. I'll try to remember your kind words next time I struggle, stumble and fail. Which will probably be tomorrow.

Children as playful artists: Integrating developmental psychology to identify children’s art in the Upper Palaeolithic: Hunter Gatherer Research: Vol 0, No 0 Children’s agential behaviours in the archaeological record have often been overlooked. Despite efforts to centre children in the past through ‘an archaeology of childhood’, there remains a fundamenta...

New paper out! Children actively made hand-stencils and flutings in the Upper Palaeolithic, but can we identify children's cave art without anatomical measurements? We present a new framework using universal features of young children's drawings 🏺 www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3...

Thanks Jeanne!

A toolmaker is sitting on the ground knapping flint outside his house, leaning against the wattle and daub wall. In the doorway a woman dressed in black is looking at the viewer, beside her a young girl holds a toddler in her arms. In the foreground on the left side of the image a customer is inspecting the flint blades. On the right side a small dog is sleeping amidst baskets, animal hides, wooden bowls and a simple stone grinder. At the bottom center of the picture is a peculiar three legged ceramic vessel.

The flintknapper – Neo-Eneolithic of Sardinia

Four children of various ages playing pretending. Perhaps imitating a religious ritual. One of them is wearing a wooden mask and an old bearskin cloak. Behind them there are woolly mammoth skull parts and tusks on the ground.

Playing pretending
Essay by April Nowell on childhood during the Ice Age:
aeon.co/essays/what-...

Extraordinary work!

The image symbolises the early peopling of the Caribbean. A canoe is heading towards small islands. The viewer sits in the canoe and a young boy is sitting on the bow looking at the viewer. Behind the boy there is a pet Cuban macaw. A now extinct species.

Please share your blue art! 💙🖼

Peopling of the Caribbean:
www.shh.mpg.de/1716874/peop...

Sometimes I make dinosaur art.

A work in progress image of a depiction of Aurignacian mammoth ivory jewellery I made for the Urgeschichtliches Museum Blaubeuren in Germany.

In 2020 I was asked to create illustrations for an upcoming viking exhibition but unexpectedly the project was put on hold. The Russian Ministry of Culture had suddenly denied permission for loans from Russian museums to leave the country. We now know the grim reason behind that action.

Yes I have, many times!

My cover image for The Oxford Handbook of Mesolithic Europe (available for pre-ordering – the book, not the image, as it still isn't possible to get any prints of my pics...)

A very old one! I mean I do understand the need of classification but as an illustrator I'm not comfortable with it. So it's just a random individual from an ancient population of hominins. Thanks!

Thanks!

Thank you!

Thanks!

This could be the start...