This beautiful animation of London's history was made entirely from paper

The video above must have taken a hell of a long time to put together.

The National Geographic’s animation of London’s colourful history spans a whopping 40,000 years. It starts in the era of woolly mammoths, sails through the Viking invasion and the time of Shakespeare, then races past the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution before arriving in the present day. Oh, and the whole thing is made entirely from paper.

The video was created to pay homage to the many artefacts that have been discovered beneath London during the construction of the upcoming Crossrail transport service.

As interesting as the subject matter is, though, the paper models alone are mesmerising enough.