fishing the rivers and hunting reindeer and other animals. As with modern
populations of Arctic peoples, human ancestors inhabiting higher latitudes
were larger than those living near the equator. Due to the scarcity of wood in
the cold tundra, ice age hunters on the central Russian plain built houses of
mammoth bones and tusks covered with animal hides (Fig. 191).They burned
bones and animal fat for heat and light.
The Neandertals were primitive Homo sapiens,named for the Neander
Valley near Dusseldorf, Germany, where the first fossils were recognized in
1856.They are generally thought to have inhabited caves. However, they also
occupied open-air sites, as evidenced by hearths and rings made of mammoth
bones and stone tools normally associated with these people. During the last
interglacial period, called the Eemian, from about 135,000 to 115,000 years
ago, the Neandertals ranged over most of western Europe and central Asia,
extending as far north as the Arctic Ocean.
Modern humans and Neandertals apparently coexisted in Eurasia for at
least 60,000 years and shared many cultural advancements.Although European
Neandertals living from 75,000 to 35,000 years ago were generally one-third
larger than modern humans, their relative brain size was nearly equal. The
Neandertals thrived in these regions until about 35,000 years ago, declining
over a period of perhaps 5,000 years. The disappearance of the Neandertals
might have resulted from the replacement or assimilation by modern humans.Figure 191Arctic
dwellers built houses of
mammoth bones and
tusks covered with hides.
Historical Geology