Ben Nevis the summit only to find "fragments of earthen and glass ware, chicken bones, corks, and bits of paper". It was not until 1847 that Ben Nevis was confirmed by the Ordnance Survey as the highest mountain in Britain and Ireland, ahead of its rival Ben Macdhui. The summit observatory was built in the summer of 1883, and would remain in operation for 21 years. The first path to the summit was built at the same time as the observatory and was designed to allow ponies to carry up supplies, with a maximum gradient of one in five. The opening of
People of the British Isles People of the British Isles The People of the British Isles (PoBI) is an ongoing population genetics project based at the University of Oxford. The project began in 2004 and is ongoing. Professor Sir Walter Bodmer founded and leads the project. The first anatomically modern people to colonise Britain arrived in around 30,000 BC, as shown by the Red Lady of Paviland. During the last Ice Age, in particular in the Last Glacial Maximum, the British Isles was probably deserted but people began returning about 15,000 BC. Whether or not the British Isles were deserted during the last cold period