Prehistoric Europe

Possible Prehistoric Musical Instruments

Music is a great passion of mine so I have wondered for a long time if our earliest prehistoric ancesters in Europe were capable of creating music and how? I've done some research on this subject, have also visited several prehistoric instruments stored at an archeological depot and I own several replicas based on archeological finds. Here is a list of possible prehistoric instruments.

Unfortunately we will never know what melodies or rhythms our ancestors played on their musical instruments. We can only try to reproduce these instruments and experience/listen to the sounds that they could have produced. We do know that creating music wasn't solely an activity practiced by us, Homo Sapiens. In the Divje babe cave, a flute was found made from the left thighbone of a young cave bear and it has been dated to around 60,000 years old. This was before modern humans settled themselves in Europe so this flute must have been created and played by the Neanderthals.

Wind instruments: -Transverse flutes -Vertical flutes -Oblique flutes -Trumpet-like instruments made from shells or gourds -Didgeridoo -Panflute -Whistles -Ocarinas

Instruments made with skins -Handdrum -Pottery drum -Frame drum -Cylinder drum -Friction drum

Instruments you can shake/rub or struck -Rattles -Rasps -Bells -Bullroarer -Click sticks -Xylophone -Ung-Klung

Instruments with strings -Mouth harp -Resonator bow -Lute/lyre -Earth bow

I see a lot of people, especially those interested in old Nordic music such as Danheim/Wardruna etc.. loving the Tagelharpa. The act of using a bow to drag it over strings in order to produce a sound, such as the tagelharpa, is actually quite a recent invention. The bow was invented around the 16th century. Tagelharpas described in the eddas were actually not played with a bow but as a lyre.

I hope this post has given some of you more of an insight in the types of instruments our paleolithic ancestors could have played. Perhaps this serves as inspiration to recreate these instruments and try them out, it's a lot of fun.

Saalien

The Saalien, also known as the Saale glaciation was one of the three largest glaciations that occured in Europe during the Pleistocene. The whole epoch lasted between 300,000 years to around 128,000 years ago. It was one of the largest glaciations in European history, the ice sheets reached the modern day city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, pushing the permafrost border halfway through France and Switzerland making most of Europe too cold and too barren to live in.

It was also during the Saalian that the Homo Neanderthalensis evolved and thrived in Europe, Asia and the middle east. The name Saalian comes from the Saale river that flows through northern Germany, a branch of the Elbe river. Only people in Northern Europe use the term Saalian however. Other places in Europe use local names such as the Wolstonian in the UK, Moskovian in Russia, Rissglacial in the Alps and Illinois Glaciation in northern America. The Dutch briefly used their own therm as well, Drenthien.

The reason why so many parts of Europe have their own names for this time period is because of the deposits which are often related to the closed glacier or local rocks/landscape. It was also the epic Saalien glacier that brought stones down to the Netherlands which would later be used to build dolmens during the neolithic, these dolmens are still visible today. The glacier also left its marks in the European landscape, since I live in the Netherlands I will give a Dutch example.

Certain pits and dents in the landscape have been formed during the Saalien, the Dutch Solse Gat is such an example. The Solse Gat is a large dent in the ground in the province of Gelderland. A puddle formed inside the dent with rare vegetation growing around it. The dent was caused by a large piece of ice, part of the Saalien glacier, that was so heavy that it left a dent behind in the ground. The Solse Gat itself was therefore created and was seen as sacred grounds by the iron age people, Germanics. It was used as a place to worship the sun, Sol (hence the name solse gat). Later during the medieval ages it was thought that Satanists were holding black masses here and even until today, Christians are trying to ban any pagans from visiting the site for religious purposes.

All of Europe must have looked like a truly bizare place during the Saalien glaciation. The middle of Europe was covered by a harsh tundra landscape only survivable by the toughest animals adapted to the cold. In the modern mediterranean areas such as Italy, Greece and Spain, the landscape was covered by pine forests which can now be found in Scandinavia. If you would stand in the place that is now known as Amsterdam, you would be looking at a high wall of ice that marked the end of the gigantic glacier, just imagine the ice wall seen in Game of Thrones.

There were no modern humans, Homo Sapiens, in Europe yet. Our species only developed 100,000 years after the start of the Saalien so Europe was only inhabited by now extinct species, the Neanderthals and the Homo Heidelbergensis. The Saalien would be the last time that the ice sheets moved that far south. It was the second last ice age which was followed up by the Eemian period which marks the last ice age and is perhaps also the best known ice age.

Cave bear

The cave bear lived in Europe and Asia and evolved from the Ursus Deningeri (Deninger's bear) 1,8 million to 100,000 years ago into the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). This bear was named the cave bear because most of the fossils have been found inside caves. Whether this bear spent more time inside caves than bear species still alive until this day is not fully clear. Fossils in caves have a much better chance to be preserved.

Just like the woolly mammoth, the first fossils of the cave bear were confused with other species. The fossils were first described in a book 'newly discovered zoolites of unknown four footed animals' by Johann Friedrich Esper back in 1774. The bones clearly confused scientists of the 18th century who thought it might belong to a species of canids, felids, apes or even a mythological creature such as a dragon. The writer of the book, Friedrich Esper, believed the fossils belonged to polar bears.

It wasn't until 20 years after the publication of the book that an anatomist, Johann Christian Rosenmüller, finally gave the species its name. Most of the cave bear fossils have been found in Austria and unfortunately during ww1, the Austrians started using earth from caves in order to win phosphate. This process destroyed a lot of the original prehistoric cave environments so that only the cave bear bones remained.

The cave bear itself was absolutely massive. The shoulder height of a cave bear could reach an average of 1,31 meters and when it stood on two legs, it could reach a height of 3,5 meters. It's the largest of all the bear species, slightly larger than the polar bear which is nowadays the largest bear species. A male cave bear could weigh about 600kg to even 1000kg while females are a lot smaller, only about 250kg.

Also the teeth of the cave bear were much larger than those of modern day bear species. This means they probably didn't have a full meat diet as you would expect from a predator of this size. The big molars of the cave bear were used to process a more plant-like diet such as tubers. Some scientists even go as far as saying that the cave bear was a solely herbivory animal. There is some evidence to back this theory up since the isotopes of cave bear bones show low levels of nitrogen-15 which is the usual case in herbivores, the levels of nitrogen inside cave bear remains are about the same as those of the woolly mammoth who also was a herbivory animal.

It is however also possible that perhaps the main diet might have been vegetarian but that they did scavenge cadavers for some meat. Some scientists suggest that the cave bears ate their own kind, the ones that died during hibernation. Judging by bear behaviour in modern times, it is very well possible that the cave bear was mostly vegetarian with occasionally some meat in its diet.

Early humans and cave bears had an interesting relationship with each other that is still not fully understood. An interesting example of this is the discovery inside the Drachenloch cave in Switzerland. Inside this cave, a low wall was found covered with several cave bear skulls. The positioning of the remains suggest a human touch which leads to a theory that early humans such as the Neanderthals worshiped the cave bear in a form of primitive religion. It is however impossible to proof this theory.

The Drachenloch cave isn't the only cave with such a discovery. The famous Chauvet cave has a skull chamber in which a cave bear skull has been placed on top of a rock resembling an altar. This skull has been placed there around 30,000 years ago so it might have been part of a religious ritual of our own species, homo sapiens.

Another strange discovery was made in Regourdou, France. A rectangular pit was found which contained the remains of 20 bears covered by a slap. The pit was located next to another pit which contained the body of a Neanderthal buried there with objects such as a cave bear bone, scrapers and flakes, these are Neanderthal grave offerings and their burial rites might have included the worship of the cave bear.

The Basura cave in Italy has a stalagmite inside that vaguely resembles a cave bear in appearance. This stalagmite is surrounded by cave bear bones which seems to have been dropped here on purpose by Neanderthals for a ritualistic purpose. Yet again we can not be fully certain about this but the fact that several caves have been found with purposefully placed cave bear bones, does suggest that both Neanderthals and us held the cave bear in high esteem.

Unfortunately the cave bear went extinct somewhere around 20,000-12,000 years ago. This is slightly earlier than the extinction of most of the other megafauna such as the woolly mammoth. Scientists believed that the cave bear went extinct because of its diet. Due to climate change, the plants eaten by the cave bears slowly disappeared which meant that the bears themselves also disappeared. It would explain why the cave bear disappeared before the woolly mammoth.

Another theory suggests that overhunting by humans might have been the cause but this seems unlikely. Cave bears were most likely avoided by early hunters, they were simply too dangerous to hunt thanks to their massive size.

An interesting fact to notice is that the species declined rapidly around 40,000 years ago. This is around the same time when modern humans appeared in Europe and Asia. Maybe humans and cave bears were competing with each other on habitats, the caves or it was a combination of both climate change and the arrival of modern humans. Even though the species has sadly disappeared, a completely preserved cave bear cub was discovered last year in Siberia. Maybe some day in the future we can bring the species back, a cave bear would surely be magnificent to behold.

Cosquer cave

The Cosquer cave is located near Marseille, France and was rediscovered by accident in 1985 by a scubadiver named Henri Cosquer. As you might have guessed, the cave was named after the discoverer. The entrance of the cave itself lies about 35/37 meters below sealevel which follows a 150 meters long slope up before reaching a huge chamber with perfectly conserved cave art.

Despite the cave being discovered in 1985, the paintings itself were only mentioned in 1991 after a diving disaster that took the lives of three divers in the cave, they died after they got lost.

The discovery of the art inside the cave was quite significant. No other paleolithic art has been discovered before in the region of Marseille and the fact that this cave's entrance is located under water can provide us with an answer. It is very likely that other similar caves in the region have been completely flooded after sea levels rose during the end of the last cold period of our ice age, this same rise of the sealevel also took Doggerland back into the seas.

The big chamber inside the cave consists of several images of animals. A total of 150 pieces of cave art have been discovered, 65 of which are hand stencils and other motifs/symbols. Most of the animals are quite familiar in other prehistoric caves such as bisons, horses and ibexes but this cave features more marine animals than other European sites. The cave is located right next to the sea so it makes sense that the art inside this cave represents more sea life than art inside caves further removed from the sea such as Chauvet.

Radiocarbon dating has dated the art inside this cave in two different time periods, 27,000 years ago and 19,000 years ago. In total, 177 animals are depicted in this cave belonging to eleven different species. There is also a rare depiction of a therianthrope (therian is Greek for wild beast and anthropos is Greek for human, these are half man/half beast beings) a human with a seal's head.

Unfortunately some of the submerged parts of the caves most likely contained cave art as well but these paintings have long disappeared thanks to the salty water and algae. What makes this cave so exceptional is the presence of marine animal paintings and tools to create these paintings such as a shell which still contains coal and a piece of calcite plague which once served as a lamp.

Just like all other cave art found in Europe, the purpose behind these paintings is still unknown (despite several theories existing, I might write about them later). Many of these caves, including the Cosquer cave, are hard to reach places full with danger. Our earliest European ancestors risked their lives creating art in these dark spots underground. What is even more stunning is that several handprints made by children have been discovered as well. This means that children were also exploring these caves but we might never know why.

Megaloceros

The Megaloceros, also known as the Irish Elk or Giant deer, is an extinct species of deer that lived throughout all of Eurasia. Most people however associate the Megaloceros with Ireland or other parts of Western Europe because most of its fossils have been found in Western Europe.

The name Megaloceros is Greek for 'great horn' and it is quite a justified name because this animal was huge with a magnificent pair of antlers. The shoulder height was about 2,1 meters tall but they could stand 3 meters tall with their antlers included. In comparison, their closest living relatives, the Fallow deer, have a shoulder height of about 85-95 centimeters.

The Megaloceros roamed around Europe and Asia from the early pleistocene, about 1,4 million years ago until their extinction around 11,000-8,000 years ago. Their antlers were absolutely gigantic and could reach a width of 3,7 meters. Just like other deer species, they would shed these mega antlers each year.

Why did this species of deer disappear? It was assumed for a long time that modern humans are responsible for their extinction but that theory is now no longer plausible. Homo Sapiens and the Megaloceros co-existed for several thousands of years and even though our ancestors might have hunted them, paleolithic modern humans did not mass slaughter animal species. The now accepted theory is that climate change combined with the effort of growing these huge antlers each year, which required the intake of lots of minerals, eventually led to the decline of this species.   The climate change led to the growth of new species of plants throughout Eurasia which meant that the diet of the Megaloceros changed drastically. These new plants did not contain as much minerals as the plants previously eaten by the Megaloceros which led to the weakening of bones and reduced antler growth. This would have led to more accidents and thus a reduced reproduction until the species eventually became extinct. Basically, their antlers became so big, that the Megaloceros was no longer able to support it.

Images of the Megaloceros survive until this very day in paleolithic cave art and the discovery of their bones. The most spectacular finds are being done around the borders of Doggerland, mainly around modern day Ireland. Irish fisherman Raymond McElroy found a complete intact skull with antlers during one of his fishing trips. This is how the animal got the nickname, Irish elk.

Chauvet Cave

The Chauvet cave is located in southeastern France in the department of Ardèche. This cave is extraordinarily well preserved making it one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world. The paintings inside this cave are also one of the oldest pieces of art ever created, almost twice as old as the Rouffignac cave art.

The paintings inside the cave, and the cave itself, were discovered not too long ago. On sunday, 18th december 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire explored the area on the left side of the Ardèche river. All three of them were experienced in speleology and believed that there might be some underground caverns present in the area. They were right, the three did discover an underground cavern which was full with hundreds of paintings, it was truly a magnificent discovery.

Hundreds of animal paintings belonging to at least 13 species have been discovered thus far. What is interesting, these paintings are quite different from paintings found in other prehistoric caves. Normally animals such as mammoths, rhinos, deer and aurochs are depicted on paleolithic cave paintings but the Chauvet cave is full with animals such as: horses, cave lions, bears, hyenas, rhinos and wisents.

Not only does this cave contain depictions of animals, several abstract markings, hand prints and even some possible shamanic figures, most notably a humanoid figure with a bison head which resembles the Minotaur a bit. There is even a drawing that can perhaps represent a volcano erupting. Another amazing aspect of the Chauvet cave art is that the animals were sometimes put into a 'scene' such as animals hunting, fighting for territory or mating rights.

Who were exactly the humans who created all of these paintings? Through dating techniques it is determined that the cave was inhabited during two periods of time. The oldest period dates back to 37,000-33,5000 years ago and thus it were humans belonging to the Aurignacian culture who were partly responsible for the art. The second period, 32,000-27,000 years ago, was during the Gravettian period. The paintings in this cave are at least 30,000 years old and were made by the first anatomically modern humans in Europe.

Not only paintings were found inside of this cave. Footprints of cave bears were discovered, fossilized bones of animals such as cave bear skulls and ibex skulls. The most interesting of these finds are perhaps the footprints of a young child and a wolf walking next to each other. If both the wolf and child walked there at the exact same time, it could mean that the domestication of the dog happened a lot earlier than previously thought.

The cave itself is closed off to the public since its discovery in 1994. This is done in order to preserve the paintings inside as other caves which are open to the public, such as Lascaux, show signs of damage by growing mold produced by humans. This is also the reason why the paintings inside are so incredibly well preserved. The cave itself has been sealed off since the paleolithic era until 1994, no human has stepped inside during that period of time, preserving the past inside.

It is however still possible to visit the images and experience the ambience of being in a cave. A gigantic life-sized replica of the cave has been built a few kilometres away from the real cave. The reproduced cave has the same atmosphere as a real cave with sounds, humidity, temperature, lighting and silence. This allows us to visit and experience the paleolithic cave ambience without damaging the real paintings.

The Elephant In Love

The El Pindal cave is located in Asturias, Spain and contains about 20 paleolithic artworks. The paintings inside this cave are a bit older than the Rouffignac cave, they are dated back to two periods during the paleolithic: 22,000 years ago and 17,000 years ago. What makes this cave especially special is the presence of quite a unique depiction of a woolly mammoth, that is how the cave earned its Spanish nickname 'Elefante Enamorado', the elephant in love.

The paintings inside this cave were discovered in 1908 by a local archeologist named Hermilio Alcade del Rio. The cave itself is about 600 meters long in length, the first 300 meters is opened up for visitors. Even though the paintings were discovered in 1908, only recent research has revealed the age of the works. Unfortunately not all of the 20 cave paintings are visible to the naked eye. The El Pindal cave has deteriorated quite a bit throughout the centuries due to climate changes.

The paintings that are still visible show the images of horses, a salmon, a red deer, abstract symbols, a bison and the most notable of them all, a woolly mammoth with a shape inside of it that looks like a heart. The appearance of a mammoth painting came as quite the surprise to researchers as depictions of mammoths are very rare in modern day Spain. It is thought that early modern humans in modern day Spain viewed the wild horse as a more sacred animal than the mammoth, while in modern day France the mammoth seemed to have been the most important spiritual animal.

Of course we can not know the exact reason why there is a heart-shaped figure inside the mammoth painting. It is also unknown and doubtful if early humans used the same symbol for a heart as we do today. Even though it is tempting to believe that this mammoth was drawn by people who adored the animal, it is more likely that this is actually a depiction of a wounded woolly mammoth.

Interestingly, the cave doesn't contain any traces of habitation so it seems that early humans have used this cave solely for religious reasons. What kind of ritual would have involved drawing a mammoth with this strange heart-shaped symbol? Was it perhaps drawn by a hunter hoping for an easy hunt? Or was our first assumption right after all and an early human drew this mammoth as a symbol of endearment? We will never know..

The Cave Of The Hundred Mammoths

The Rouffignac cave is a cave located in the department of Dordogne in France and is also known as the cave of the hundred mammoths thanks to its 255  cave paintings of which 62% represent a mammoth. The cave itself is big, it has over 10 kilometers of underground passageways and shafts that lead to even deeper levels not fully explored. In total, 12 kilometers of the cave has been explored and visitors can take a tour on a train that will take them about 2km far into the cave.

Earliest mentions of the cave dates back to 1575 when writer and painter François Belleforest described strange paintings and footprints of various animals in his work 'Cosmographie Universelle'. During the 19th century, the cave became a tourist attraction because of the paintings but nobody yet realised that these paintings were actually made during the paleolithic era.

It wasn't until the 1950's when several researchers (Romain Robert, Louis-René Nougier, Charles and Louis Plassard) entered the cave and noticed that the paintings inside were of great historical value. In 1957 the cave became a listed site and it was finally confirmed that the art inside, is in fact prehistoric in nature and thus of incredible archeological value.

The art inside the cave is not the oldest art found in Europe. The art of Rouffignac is dated back to about 13,000 years ago from the Magdalenian culture, in comparison the art of Chauvet cave is about 30,000 years old. What is quite fascinating is the fact that 62% of all the paintings, 158 in total, represent a mammoth. There are 29 depictions of bison, 16 of a horse, 12 of an ibex, 11 of a rhino, 6 of a snake, 4 of a human, 1 of a bear and 14 abstract paintings.

Some of the art has been made in quite difficult positions inside the cave, it's amazing to think that humans were able to explore this cave 13,000 years ago and make these pieces of art. There must have been a reason behind all of this art because no one would enter this cave that deeply to create art in pitch black and dangerous surroundings in prehistoric times, even with all of our current gear and knowledge humans wouldn't even do this for fun in the 21st century. The possible spiritual meaning behind cave art still remains a mystery yet an incredibly fascinating topic to explore.

Why is there such an abundance of mammoth cave art in Rouffignac? We actually have no idea why. Perhaps our ancestors viewed the woolly mammoth as a particularly sacred animal, maybe their spiritual beliefs were based on the spirit of the mammoth. These are just wild guesses because in truth, it is impossible to find any archeological evidence inside this cave that explains the reason why there are so many depictions of a mammoth. One thing that is certain is that the mammoth continues to fascinate human beings until this very day, I myself got a tattoo of a woolly mammoth based on art found inside this cave.

Vindija Cave

The Vindija cave is located in the Donja Voca municipality in Croatia and is a rich archeological site. Several remains of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens have been found here. The most unique aspect of this is the fact that these Neanderthal remains were the primary source for the first attempt to sequence the full genome of the Neanderthal DNA.

The cave itself consists of 13 levels and dates back to 150,000 years ago. During the first half of the 20th century, the cave was excavated and the remains of several animals appeared. Between 1974 and 1986 a more thorough and extensively research was conducted in this cave which led to the discovery of over 100 pieces and bits belonging to hominins such as us, Homo Sapiens, and Neanderthals in 4 of the 13 levels of the cave and countless of other animal bones.

In total the bodies of four Neanderthal individuals were discovered and excavated in two levels of the cave, level G3, the lowest level containing human remains which dates back to around 45,000-38,000 years ago and G1 a level which dates back to around 34,000-32,000 years ago. Modern humans were found in level F (31,000-28,000 years ago) and level D (less than 18,500 years ago).

Now this leads to an interesting question, did modern humans and Neanderthals live together in this cave? In 2017, researchers from the Oxford radiocarbon accelerator unit researched the remains of the Neanderthals by using a new technique. This technique involves using AMS ultrafiltration on hydroxyproline which has been extracted from the Neanderthal samples. To explain this more easily, the sample is put into an accelerator in which the ions of the sample are accelerated and then passed through a magnet so that a detector can then record the amount of C14 ions.

The AMS dating technique shows that the Neanderthals are older than 44,000 years, this is about 8000 years older than the first arrival of modern humans in the cave so we now know that both species did not intermix.

In the 2010's several DNA researches were conducted on the Neanderthal remains. In 2010, scientists were succesfull in making a first draft of the Neanderthal genome based on mainly the Neanderthal remains found in the Vindija cave. In 2018 it was discovered that all four of the Neanderthals were genetically closest to each other than to any other Neanderthal found thus far. Modern humans living right now also share more DNA with the Vindija Neanderthals than other Neanderthals such as the Altai found in Siberia.

Sungir

Sungir is the name of an archeological site in Russia, slightly north east of Moscow, that was discovered in 1955. The discovery was an accident as local digging from clay pits eventually led to the discovery of an ancient human settlement and burial site. The site has been dated back to somewhere around 33,000BC and is therefore a real treasure trove for researchers researching the lifestyle of early European homo sapiens.

What makes the Sungir site especially fascinating is the discovery of extremely extravagant burials. One example is a buried male, who died somewhere between the age of 35-45. It is not certain how he died but he probably died quite suddenly from an injury in his neck. He was buried with elaborate decorations including 3,000 beads made of mammoth ivory, fox teeth and ivory bracelets. It took early humans about 40 minutes to make just one ivory bead so imagine how much time they spent making 3,000 of them.

Two other richly decorated graves were found, which belonged to two adolescent children. These two were placed together in a grave with an adult femur bone. Both children were also decorated with thousands of mammoth ivory beads, red ochre, bracelets, fox teeth (they would have needed to slay at least 20 foxes for this burial), mammoth ivory spears, disks and pierced antlers.

This site is extremely important because it gives us clues into the spiritual lives of our earliest European ancestors. There has to be of course a reason why these three individuals were buried with such riches. If you count the man-hours of all the found decorations, it would be at least 10,000 hours. Why were these people buried with all of these items?

Several theories about the reason why they were buried like this exists, sadly it is impossible to be absolutely sure about a theory since these ancient people haven't written anything down. One theory suggests that these individuals were part of an ancient ritualistic sacrifice. Perhaps they were sacrificed to the landspirits for certain blessings, it would explain the extreme amount of jewelry and unique burial style.

Another theory suggests that these three individuals were of a high status, perhaps the adult male was the chief of the tribe and suffered from a hunting injury that ultimately cost him his life, his high status could be the reason why he received so many burial gifts but it doesn't explain why the two children were also buried with such rich gifts.

It wasn't until 2017 when scientists finally fully sequenced the DNA of the two children, the adult male and the adult femur bone. All four individuals are male but none of them are direct family members of each other so the children were not the high status offspring of the buried adult male. This would mean that the theory of a possible human sacrifice seems more likely than the theory of high status burials.

One important detail that I want to add is the fact that both the children and the adult male show physical abnormalities in their remains. This might perhaps be the reason why they were part of a ritual, if the ritual theory is correct, and why they were given such an odd burial. Perhaps they were viewed as gifted people thanks to their disabilities. One of the children, a 10 year old boy, has femurs which are unusually short and the other boy, 12 years old, shows an abnormality in his upper jaw.

There is still so much to learn about ancient paleolithic spiritual practices. It is also unfortunately an incredibly hard subject since there is so little evidence and we have to make conclusions based on the lifestyle of modern day hunters and gatherers which is of course not 100% reliable. But piece by piece and through careful research we might perhaps reconstruct bits of ancient spiritual practices of our earliest European ancestors.

Rediscovery Of The Woolly Mammoth

The woolly mammoth is a species of mammoth that unfortunately went extinct around 10,000 years ago, this animal is also seen as the symbol of ancient European ice ages. Small populations of woolly mammoths continued to survive on the Wrangel Island in Russia until as recent as 4,000 years ago. There were still some mammoths left when the great pyramids in Egypt were being built.

Even though all mammoth species are now extinct, their legacy continues to live on in the minds of modern humans. Their bones and tusks are still being used until this very day. The indigenous cultures of Siberia and North America still contain myths explaining the presence of mammoths and other extinct megafauna. Whether these myths are based on ancient memories of ancestors who have witnessed these animals or based on found remains throughout the centuries is not fully known.

Indigenous Siberian people believe that the remains of woolly mammoths were once part of an animal able to crawl underground, also an explanation why earthquakes happen. If a mammoth was unfortunate enough to crawl upwards and reach the surface, it would die. This is one of the legends surrounding the woolly mammoth that has survived until this day. Indigenous north American people had similar stories of mammoths living underground. Another native-American legend, of the Inupiat people, suggests that mammoths were primordial giants.

Long before the western world started to seriously study ancient extinct species, parts of mammoth remains, such as their tusks, were imported into Europe. This precious ivory is still worth an incredible amount of money but back in the medieval ages, no one thought this ivory came from an extinct species. Europeans had several explanations for woolly mammoth remains: they probably belonged to an escaped herd of elephants during the Roman republic, they were the actual war elephants of Hannibal, they are simply just elephants who wandered a bit too far north or they are the victims of the great flood described in the biblical book genesis.

The first person who recognized that these remains were actually part of an extinct species of elephant was Hans Sloane back in 1728. Sloane published a paper in that year what can now be considered as the first scientific research on the woolly mammoth. 10 years later another researcher, Johann Philipp Breyne, also researched mammoth fossils and came to the conclusion that they are a species of elephant. Both men were however clueless on how these 'elephants' got in Siberia and proposed the theory that they were victims of Noah's flood.

It took until 1796 when these mysterious 'elephant' remains from Siberia were finally identified as a completely different species, not modern elephants as thought before but an entirely new species. French anatomist Georges Cuvier was the first to identify the woolly mammoth as a mammoth species and the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave the species its official scientific name 'Mammuthus Primigenius'.

In 1806, a Russian botanist Mikhail Adams journeyed towards northeastern Siberia to witness the most complete woolly mammoth skeleton found back in 1799. (the most complete of that time period, more complete and intact mammoth remains have been found since 1799) It was the first time that the entire skeleton, without the tusks, was found. The remains were brought back to St Petersburg and an attempt was made to reassemble the skeleton. There was however one problem, no one knew how the tusks would have looked like so the tusks were mounted on the wrong sides so that the curves went outwards instead of inwards. This mistake wasn't corrected until 1899 and is still visible in the famous sketch of Adams mammoth.

Nowadays multiple subspecies of mammoth have been discovered, the woolly mammoth is just one of the mammoth species that once roamed the earth. It took until 2005 before researchers were finally able to complete a full mitochondrial genome profile of the woolly mammoth. 10 years later in 2015 it was confirmed that the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth is the asian elephant. If an attempt is ever made to bring back the woolly mammoth, our modern asian elephants can help us out. But the subject of bringing the woolly mammoth back to life again is a topic for another post.

Aurignacian

The Aurignacian period is the earliest European culture in modern human history. The Aurignacian era lasted from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago and is associated with the early Homo Sapiens migration towards Europe. The modern humans of this time period were also the last ones to have encountered a Neanderthal.

Most of the classic 'prehistoric items and art' are from this time period. This includes: most of the classic cave art, such as the art in the Aurignac cave in France (that is where the name Aurignacian comes from), the countless venus statues that have been found all over Europe, carvings of mammoths and bears made from ivory and wood, flutes, more diverse tools such as needles and tools made from antler and bone.

Since the Aurignacian period is quite large, it has been divided into subperiods: the Proto-Aurignacian (43,000-37,000), the Aurignacian (37,000-33,000) and the Late-Aurignacian (33,000-26,000). Each of these subperiods has its own distinctive technologies influenced by both technological proces and climate change.

Art is perhaps the most defining trait of the Aurignacian, as the Aurignacian is the first time period during which modern humans developed a distinct taste for art. These artworks do not only include cave paintings but handcrafted objects as well. One particulary fascinating object is the Löwenmensch figure which has been found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany. The statue is about 40,000 years old and is the oldest representation of an anthropomorphic figure. We do not know the purpose behind the creation of this statue, perhaps it was just art or it served a deeper spiritual purpose, perhaps a representation of a shaman in trance.

Musical instruments also started appearing during this time period, the most common instrument found is the bone flute, this does not mean that the flute was the most popular instrument, bone flutes are just more easily preserved. We can only imagine what kind of tunes our earliest European ancestors would have played on these flutes.

The tools used by early humans also started to change during the Aurignacian period. Before this time period, almost all tools were made of stone, flint. It was during the Aurignacian period that tools made of bone and antler slowly started to appear. These bone and antler tools also gives us some insight into the animals that were hunted by these early modern humans, it seems that deer and reindeer were their primary prey, this would continue to be the case until the Magdalénien culture 18,000 years ago.

Cro Magnon

The Cro Magnon humans were the earliest modern humans to settle in Europe. They are thus not a seperate extinct species of human but they are our earliest European ancestors. It is however not fully certain when modern humans, homo sapiens, entered Europe. Some historians agree on a date somewhere around 50,000BC while others suggest that the Cro Magnon entered Europe 210,000 years ago. This theory is based on skull fragments found in Greece.

Even though the Cro Magnon were modern humans, they did not look exactly the same as present day humans. The evolutionary path of our species is always moving, adapting to our current living situations. Our species and the Neanderthals have a common ancestor whose features were quite visible in the Cro Magnon human. The brow ridges were more prominent, the teeth were larger, they did not yet have the slight overbite of our upper jaw which enables us to make the 'W' sound. They were build much more robust compared to present day modern humans, it is clear that they were well adapted to the cold.

It was the Cro Magnon who encountered the then still present Neanderthals in Europe. We do not fully understand why the Neanderthals disappeared while we continued to evolve and develop our technologies. It is unlikely that a long lasting conflict between the two species is the cause of the Neanderthal's demise. A possible theory is that modern humans are much more fertile. Their population was much bigger than that of the Neanderthals and they eventually started to have children with the Neanderthals as well.

If real love existed between both species is unknown but it is an interesting concept to think about. It is possible that through these factors, the Neanderthals were slowly pushed out of existence, since Neanderthal women weren't as fertile as modern day female humans are, it is likely that Neanderthals started having relationships with modern day humans until eventually the last pure Neanderthal disappeared. They are not completely gone from this world, we all carry parts of Neanderthal genes inside of us.

The Cro Magnon are also the earliest humans with a distinct taste for art, the most famous example is perhaps the 'Venus' statue. These statues have been found throughout Europe but we still do not know for which purpose they were created, a topic for a post in the future. They wore jewelry, most likely piercings and tattoos and other body art like painting the body with a dye.

These early humans also made music by using instruments such as bone flutes and whistles. Unfortunately wood and skin decays pretty rapidly so we do not know if they used other prehistoric instruments such as drums and bullroarers but if we compare the Cro Magnon with still existing tribes, it is very likely that they did play on such instruments.

Eventually the Cro Magnon developed distinct cultures throughout Europe and these in turn developed into the mesolithic cultures. Their bodies slowly evolved into the bodies that we have today, although evolution is an ever continuing process so who knows how the homo sapiens species will look like in another 100,000 years. When will we have changed so much that we can call it an another human species?

This is a 14,000 years old sculpture of two bisons. The sculpture is made out of clay and discovered in the cave of Tuc Audoubert in 1912 in France.

Oudste kunst van Nederland

In 1997 werd er door archeologen grondig onderzoek gedaan bij Sint Odiliënberg in Limburg vanwege de eerdere vondst van een aantal bewerkte vuurstenen. Deze onderzoek had dan ook goede resultaten en een prehistorisch jagerskamp werd ontdekt. Bij deze jagerskamp werd ook een steen gevonden met daarop een tekening, nu bekent als de steen van Linne.

Op de steen lijkt een driehoek met daarin gekerfde dwarslijnen te staan afgebeeld wat een unieke vondst is. Vanwege de unieke aard, is er dan ook lang gedacht dat deze steen vervalst was. Het heeft tot 2012 geduurd voordat er experts uit Bordeaux kwamen om de steen te controleren op de echtheid. Uiteindelijk kwam het verlossende antwoord, de steen en de gekerfde afbeelding is echt en dat niet alleen, het is de oudste gekerfde afbeelding in Nederland.

De kiezelsteen is ongeveer 9 bij 5,5 centimeter groot en het gekerfde symbool heeft een onbekende betekenis. Het zou best kunnen dat een verveelde jager ooit willekeurige lijnen en figuren zat te kerven in een steen. Met c14 datering is aangewezen dat de steen maar liefst 12,000 jaar oud is. Dit betekent dus dat de steen van Linne de oudste kunst van Nederland is. Er zijn nog andere vergelijkbare stenen gevonden met gekerfde afbeeldingen uit de prehistorie.

Één van zo'n ander gevonden steen is de steen van de danser van Wanssum. Deze steen is net zoals de steen van Linne gevonden in Limburg tijdens de jaren 60 door drie amateurarcheologen. Interessant detail is dat de tekening zelf pas in 1988 werd ontdekt toen archeologen de steen nader bekeken in een archeologisch depot. Deze steen heeft geen gekerfde abstract figuur maar een dansend mannetje.

Dezelfde team experts uit Bordeaux hebben ook deze steen onderzocht, tegelijkertijd met de steen van Lille, en ook deze steen is echt en gedateerd op 11,000 jaar oud. Naast de steen van Lille en de danser van Wanssum, werd er nog een steen onderzocht door deze team van experts, de venus van Geldrop.

Deze steen is in 1962 gevonden door een amateur archeoloog in Noord-Brabant vlakbij het plaatsje Geldrop. Net zoals de danser van Wanssum bevat ook deze steen een ingekerfde afbeelding, dit keer van een vrouwelijk figuur bekleed met een voorschoot. Ook deze steen is door de team van experts op echtheid gecontroleerd en gedateerd tot ongeveer 11,000 jaar oud.

Deze drie stenen vormen samen een kleine verzameling met zeer vroege Nederlandse kunst uit de prehistorie, natuurlijk bestond het concept van Nederland nog niet maar het blijkt dat ook de prehistorische mens in het huidige Nederland zich bezig hield met het maken van kunst. Wie weet wat er nog allemaal verborgen ligt in de grond. Misschien zijn deze drie vondsten nog maar het tipje van de ijsberg.