Scandinavian prehistory began when the Scandinavian peninsula, formerly entirely covered by thick ice, became free of ice at the end of the last ice age, c. 11,000 BC. At that time, a hunter gatherer people, the Ahrensburg culture, lived and hunted near the edge of the ice. It took until the 7th millennium BC for forest, wildlife and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to fully colonise the newly available land. In southern Scandinavia, a Maglemosian culture (c. 7500 BC – 6000 BC) developed. The Maglemosian people lived in forest and wetland environments using fishing and hunting tools made from wood, bone and flint microliths. A characteristic of the culture are the sharply edged microliths of flintstone which were used for spear heads and arrowheads. Microliths finds are more sparse from c. 6000 BC and the period is said to transit into the Kongemose culture (c. 6000 BC – c. 5200 BC). The finds from this period are characterised by long flintstone flakes which were used for making the characteristic rhombic arrowheads, scrapers, drills, awls and toothed blades.