Transcript Document

For more than 500,000 years the
European climate has oscillated
between cold and frigid, with
periodic advances and retreats of
the great northern glaciers.
QuickTime™ and a
Video decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
And during the last 100,000 years
Europe has been the exclusive province
of Neandertals, our evolutionary
cousins. In recent years, however, both
the climate and the population have
begun to change…
120,000 - 40,000 BC
Europe
Homo sapiens immigrants from lands to the
east and south have been reported recently
at a variety of European settlements
around the Mediterranean Temnata Cave in Bulgaria,
Grotto di Fumane in northern Italy and
El Castillo in northern Spain.
At the same time numerous camps have
sprung up along a northern corridor following
the River Danube as far west as the
Swabian Jura in southern Germany. These
early European pioneers come principally
from mtDNA haplogroup U5 and yDNA
haplogroup R1b and bring with them the
Aurignacian Culture.
40,000 BC
Bulgaria,
Spain
Hungary, Italy,
Austria,
Germany
Europe continues to enjoy warmer than
normal temperatures, which may partially
explain the influx of Aurignacian people
arriving from the south. Our long range
prognosticators, however, see cold times
ahead.
37,000 BC
Europe
Aurignacian colonization of the upper
reaches of the River Danube continues
this season with settlement of the
Geißenklösterle cave. Hunters there are
enjoying surprisingly temperate weather
while hunting bison, mammoth, bear and
smaller animals. Geißenklösterle artists are
particularly accomplished and have produced
a variety of animal and human figurines made
of mammoth ivory, as well as a flute
fashioned from a swan bone.
37,000 BC
Upper Danube, Southern Germany
A group of Aurignacian beachcombers
moving west along the coast of the
Mediterranean has displaced the Neanderthal
population that had been living in the
Arbreda Rockshelter for a period of almost
two thousand years.
36,000 BC
Spain
Several of our spotters located west of the
Alps have observed Aurignacian bands
moving up the Rhone River in France to
establish camp sites in many caves there.
Hunting of horse, bison and mammoth has
been good in this region and the local people
share their knowledge of the fauna by creating
vibrant paintings in places such as the
subterranean cavern of la Grotte Chauvet.
33,000 BC
Southern France
33,000 BC
Chauvet Cave
The latest Aurignacian camp to be established
in the Upper Danube region is the cave of
Hohlenstein-Stadel and its occupants are
just as talented in the carving of mammoth
ivory as their neighbors from Vogelherd and
Geißenkösterle.
32,000 BC
Upper Danube, Southern Germany
The most famous piece of art
from Hohlenstein-Stadel is
the “Löwenmensch”, a 30 cm
tall anthropomorphic lion figurine
carved from mammoth ivory.
The cave of Vogelherd is located just a short distance from HohlensteinStadel on the Lone River, a tributary of the Danube. Here the craftsmen
appear also to share a fascination with the cave lion and in their art to
frequently celebrate this powerful carnivore, as well as more utilitarian beasts
of prey, such as the mammoth and the horse.
32,000 BC
Upper Danube, Southern Germany
Europe’s weather pattern maintains its chilly
character. The prediction is that wild
oscillations between cold and slightly more
temperate will continue for the next 10,000
years. Despite these trying conditions a new
and rather unified culture, the Gravettian,
has appeared from France to the Ukraine.
30,000 BC
Europe
Gravettian hunters operating in the Hohle
Fels region of the Upper Danube Valley of
southern Germany report that the hunting
of cave bears, Urus spelaeus, has been very
successful this winter and early spring. The
favorite technique is to spear the beast in
the back while still deep in the slumber of
its December to March hibernation - not
very sporting but certainly preferable to a
one-on-one duel with these gigantic bruins.
27,000
27,000BC
BC
Upper Danube, Southern Germany
In contrast to conditions north of the Alps
life for our Gravettian colleagues to the
south on the edge of the Mediterranean
Basin near the cave of Cosquer is much
more comfortable. Beachcombing,
fishing and hunting seals and auks is
common there.
27,000
27,000BC
BC
Southern France
Travelers have recently observed large
numbers of dead mammoths on the
periglacial steppe of Moravia. The animals
are apparently victims of the spring floods.
In that treeless land our Eastern Gravettian
colleagues, especially those from Dolni
Vestonice, make ready use of the
mammoths’ bones as material for their
dwellings and as fuel for their fire hearths.
27,000 BC
Czech Republic
The female figurine from Dolni Vestonice
seen in the previous bulletin is just one
of dozens appearing in Gravettian camps
all across Europe. At Willendorf on the
lower Danube a particularly impressive
piece was crafted just this year.
27,000 BC
Lower Danube, Austria
The Eastern Gravettian residents of Sunghir
on the Russian steppe are innovating new
techniques for contending with the intense
cold at the edge of the glaciers where their
favorite hunting prey abound. The recent
invention of bone needles now allows much
warmer and finely stitched leather clothing
to be made than ever before.
27,000
26,000BC
BC
Sunghir, Russia
And Sunghir families do not limit themselves to simple utilitarian garments.
During the long winters they decorate the clothing of both the living and the
dead with elaborate bead work crafted from bone and ivory.
Most of Central Europe is now covered
with patchy woodlands.
25,000 BC
Europe
Although not as common as on the
plains of eastern Europe, mammoths
have been seen regularly this year
in the upper Danube region. At the
site of Hohle Fels mammoth bone
has been used to craft figurines of
a horse, a bird and a lion man.
27,000
25,000BC
BC
Upper Danube, Southern Germany
Eastern Gravettian residents of Kostienki on
the River Don in the Ukraine report that, after
several hundred years of warmer and more
humid conditions, the weather is swinging
back toward dry and glacial. Despite this
hardship rabbits, arctic fox, and mammoth are
plentiful and the hunters have adapted to the
windswept steppes by constructing houses
made of hide and mammoth bone and
creating food freezers dug into the permafrost.
With these techniques Kostienkis are able to
live semi-permanently there and avoid moving
constantly in search of food.
27,000
22,000 BC
BC
Ukraine
Reports from La Riera on the north coast
of Spain describe the hunters there
occupying a largely treeless and increasingly
frigid landscape. There they hunt ibex and
red deer with stone-tipped spears and
slaughter herds after trapping them in thick
snow or behind brushwood fences positioned to block off narrow valleys.
20,000 BC
La Riera, Northern Spain
The trend that we began to experience
during the last millennium now seems set
to continue indefinitely into the future.
Central Europe has become a polar desert
and is completely uninhabitable. The Upper
Danube has been abandoned and its former
residents have moved south into the
Pyrenees.
19,000 BC
Europe
Winters continue to be harsh, with temperatures falling to minus 20° C. In western
Europe most people have settled in the
valleys of southern France and in Spain to
live by hunting reindeer, horse and bison.
People are often desperate for food and
have to crack open even the smallest
bones of reindeer for sustenance.
18,000 BC
Europe
Constant winds and drifting sands are
reported all across the polar deserts of
northern and central Germany, where
mid-summer temperatures reach only 10° C
and February temperatures plummet to
minus 20° C. Permafrost extends all the
way to central France.
18,000 BC
Europe
The populations of western Europe and
eastern Europe have become completely
isolated from each other, and three southern
refugia against the glacial cold have
developed: one in Iberia, one in the Balkans,
and one in the Ukraine.
In Iberia a distinctive Solutrean cultural
tradition has appeared marked by magnificent leaf-shaped points, while in the east
the Epi-Gravettian culture has been
enriched by an influx of men from the south
bearing the M170 Y-chromosome marker.
18,000 BC
Europe
Glaciers have advanced to cover Ireland
almost entirely. Thick sheets of ice
stretch from Scotland to the southwest
and the sea level has dropped 400 feet.
Habitation is possible only in the far
south in Counties Cork, Limmerick and
Waterford.
18,000 BC
Ireland
Our station in Kent is reporting severe
winter temperatures of -16° C.
Hunting may resume in summer when
temperatures are predicted to rise to
10° C.
18,000 BC
Southern Britain