What Happened to the Cro Magnon People

In the Pleistocene epoch, Homo sapiens, our very species, first arrived in Europe. Here, they encountered a new world, one characterized by wide open plains, temperate woodlands, rolling hills, and snowy tundra. It was a frontier as of yet unconquered by modern humans, and these early people were the pioneers that would, one day, lead to the rise of civilization in Europe. We call some of them Cro-Magnons, named after five skeletons that were discovered in 1868 at the Cro-Magnon rock shelter in Dordogne, France. But a more appropriate term would be European Early Modern Humans. Who exactly were these people? Where and how did they live? Ultimately, what happened to them to give rise to modern European humans? In today's video, we will be diving into the Paleolithic to find out the answers to these questions and more. Join us as we take a trip through time to meet the Cro-Magnons, the first Europeans, and discover what ultimately became of them. Modern humans have been living in Europe for as long as 56,800 years. These first folk, to pass over from Western Asia however, cannot be considered Cro-Magnon. Their genes do not correlate with those seen in modern Europeans. The Cro-Magnons then arrived in Europe about 37,000 years ago, when this first wave of settlers either moved on, or died out. The Cro-Magnon would stay here for good, and their lineage would give rise to the Europeans that live here today. This was the Upper Paleolithic period, where rich cultures were being established all over the Stone Age world. The Cro-Magnon peoples would go on to spearhead, literally, these cultures in Europe, establishing a wide range of tools, art, and possible spiritual beliefs. The Cro-Magnons were, in terms of appearance and biology, very similar to modern people living in Southern Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa today. There were some notable differences however. Surprisingly, their brains were slightly larger than those seen in modern humans, as were their teeth. Physically, they were stronger and more robust than us, well equipped for tackling the harsh conditions of the ancient world. Their skin was darker than that of modern Europeans, and their faces were slightly broader, with more prominent brow ridges. When the Cro-Magnon people arrived in Europe, they would have encountered Homo Neanderthalensis, the Neanderthals that were already occupying Eurasia across much of the Mammoth Steppe and beyond. Cro-Magnons appeared to be more numerous than Neanderthals in these early years, which was likely attributable to their high birth rate. As they spread out across Europe, the Cro-Magnon people became excellent hunters, exploiting the wide range of resources this new continent had to offer, with innovative technologies and hunting methods. So, we know who these early Europeans were, but how did they live? We know that the Cro-Magnon people were hunter-gatherers, like many Paleolithic societies, and that they took a wide range of prey items to supplement their plant-heavy diets. The first groups of Cro-Magnons in Europe would have paved the way for future generations by surveying the landscape and learning much about the plants and animals that lived through it. The meat these early communities ate differed depending on location and time of year, with hunters learning to prepare for the annual migrations of animals as the seasons passed. Hoofed mammals were commonly hunted as they were relatively easy to bring down with the technology available to Cro-Magnons. Deer such as Red Deer and Reindeer were hunted, as were wild horses, bison, aurochs, ibex and occasionally woolly mammoths. To hunt the larger mammals listed there, such as aurochs and mammoths, Cro-Magnon hunters would chase prey into a natural confined space, such as the end of a valley, the bottom of a cliff or a steep ravine. Here, they would be able to seal off the exits, and perhaps have hunters striking the animals with spears or rocks from above. Hunting in this way would help increase the chances of multiple kills being made, which could reliably feed communities throughout more difficult months. As well as hunting large animals with spears, archaeologists believe that some Cro-Magnon communities were skilled fishermen. Using basic harpoons made of wood or bone, tribes situated on riverbanks or coastal regions could obtain a steady supply of food from the water, spearing or grabbing fish as they swam by. Communities hunting in this way also could have made use of shellfish living beneath the waves, as well as hunting the meat of waterbirds. The Cro-Magnons had very diverse diets and supplemented their meat with a wide range of nuts, fruits and other wild plants that grew in abundance across their native Europe. These people had not yet developed agricultural technologies, which meant that they had to forage for their food, picking it from the woodlands, seasonally, wherever it grew. All manner of wild plants were harvested in this way, and we know that communities around the Mediterranean, for instance, were consuming great quantities of fruit, namely wild pears, hawthorn berries, blackthorn berries and grapes. Communities of Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers consumed a wide variety of nuts, including acorns and almonds, and some dug up and ate tubers, including those of caltrops and water lilies. Elsewhere, Cro-Magnons were eating cherries, blackberries, rosehips, pistachio and sorbus. There is some evidence to suggest that tribespeople prepared the plants they harvested, on some occasions they may have been boiled or fermented to change the flavour and texture of the food. Cro-Magnons were inhabitants of caves throughout Europe, and there is much evidence to suggest that they kept their caves organised. There are even implications of home planning in some of these sites. Some caves appear to have been divided into areas where tribespeople could gather, sleep, cook, eat, butcher prey and dispose of waste products from their cooking. When Cro-Magnon hunters were out for sustained periods of time gathering and hunting, they would build temporary shelters from wood and hide, protecting themselves from the wind and snow of the steppes. Across Eastern Europe, from what is now Russia and Ukraine, Cro-Magnon people built substantially more advanced huts. These could be as large as 12.5 metres, or 41 feet, in diameter, and were typically made from the bones of mammoths. The larger huts may have been used as storage facilities for excess tools and food, or may have been communal dwellings. The idea of a matriarchal society has been proposed for life in ancient Europe, which likely shifted at the dawn of civilisation, when agriculture and permanent settlements became commonplace. Venus figurines, artistic sculptures that often show the nude bodies of women, have been interpreted as depictions of a mother goddess, or evidence of a matriarchal religion. Women are much more commonly depicted in art than men in Cro-Magnon Europe. But strangely, most of the burial sites uncovered from the time represent the graves of men. Some archaeologists have argued that Cro-Magnon society was not matriarchal, and may have even been a patriarchal society. There is insufficient evidence to say for certain, but with future research and discoveries, we may be able to gain an accurate insight into the day-to-day life of a Cro-Magnon person. Venus figurines were by no means the only pieces of art left behind by Cro-Magnons, and they appear to have had a wide repertoire of mediums when it came to creation and expression. One of the most common Cro-Magnon artefacts is the cave painting, evidence of which can be seen across many sites in Europe. Paintings were typically made from charcoal and ochre, and showed a wide range of subjects. Animals, humans, animal-human hybrids, simple geometric patterns, and perceived spiritual or mythological figures. Cave paintings were usually created in the darkest reaches of caves, where fire was required to illuminate the wall. With a flat rock as a palette, and a reed as a brush, detailed paintings could be created to indicate the dangers of the natural world, religious beliefs, or ideas shared between ancient peoples. In some locations, stencils were used to create handprints of tribespeople on the walls of caves, which were outlined using red ochre. Wide ranges of handprint sizes have been discovered, which suggest both children and adults were involved in their making. They may have had spiritual significance, or may have been a creative tradition for individuals living in a particular tribe. Sculptures were also commonplace, and not just the Venus figurines. In sites across Europe, sculptures have been found that show animals such as bison, mammoths, lions, horses, rhinoceroses, and birds. The Cro-Magnon people brought a series of technological leaps forward with them to Europe, the largest of which is perhaps the invention of the trade route. It is unknown exactly where the first trade route took place, but there is evidence to suggest that Cro-Magnon Europeans took part in them, either bringing the idea with them from Asia and Africa, or developing the first trade routes in Eurasia when they arrived. Evidence for trade routes has been found at a number of sites containing materials that should not be found in that particular region. For example, a Cro-Magnon cave painting of a bull in the spectacular Lascaux cave in France was partly crafted using hausmanite, a manganese mineral that is only available 160 miles away in the Pyrenees region. This material may have been traded from a neighbouring tribe in exchange for some of the Lascaux community's goods. Another innovation utilised by Cro-Magnon people was the domestication of animals, specifically that of the dog. Evidence leads to the idea that dog domestication took a lot of trial and error, and may have happened in several different places with various communities of wolves. Early dog remains from around 33,000 years ago in what is now Siberia indicate that Cro-Magnon people had a relationship with the local wolves that was verging on symbiotic. Unlike wolves, these domesticated animals had shorter snouts and wider braincases and would have become domesticated as wolves began to patrol the outskirts of human camps to pick off scraps of wasted food. As time progressed, the relationship between man and dog would have deepened, and dogs were bred for hunting purposes. Later, dogs may have been used for transport purposes, perhaps helping to move items from place to place. Others acted as guard animals, defending campsites from bands of raiders, or dangerous wild animals. In addition to all of these cultural and technological advancements, Cro-Magnon people in ancient Europe may have had a darker side to their practices. Cannibalism. During the Pleistocene epoch, humans were able to travel across Doggerland, a now sunken land bridge between the British Isles and mainland Europe. The humans that settled in Britain eventually developed their own cultural practices and traditions, and the earliest evidence of ritual cannibalism comes from Guff's Cave in what is today Somerset in England. This evidence comes in the form of a series of grisly drinking cups made from the cranium of human skulls. Incisions were made along the midline of a skull to effectively scout the sacrificial victim, before engravings, interpreted as ritual patterns, were carved into the bone. It has then been speculated that the skull would be used to drink human blood, or another spiritual concoction, perhaps as a sacrifice or rite to appease spiritual figures or gods. There is still much to be learned about these practices, however, and archaeologists cannot be certain that this is what took place. It is hard to discern the religious beliefs of a community that predates written history, and much of what is known about ancient European religion has been inferred from art and archaeological sites that are lucky enough to maintain some semblance of evidence. One of the biggest indicators of Cro-Magnon spirituality or religion comes in the form of the aforementioned cave paintings, specifically the human-animal hybrid figures painted on the walls of European caves in the Paleolithic. On the walls of the world-famous Chauvet Cave in France, host to what is possibly the best collection of European cave paintings, is a depiction of a figure with the upper body of a bison and the lower body of a human. This may be evidence that the Cro-Magnon communities of Europe practised shamanism, a spiritual belief system that includes mythologies of humans turning into animals, and vice versa. If not shamanism, then it is clear that some form of spirituality was practised by these ancient peoples, as evidenced in the presence of burials with grave goods. Grave goods were objects buried with deceased people that they could take forward to the afterlife with them. This implies belief in life after death, and Cro-Magnon people were buried with a wide variety of grave goods. Red ochre, beads and pendants, animal teeth, figurines and weapons were buried in graves with the remains of peoples at sites across Europe. Some individuals were buried together, and the vast amount of grave goods interned with the bodies suggests that preparations for funerary rites were made long before the individuals were actually buried. Cro-Magnon funerary rites might even give us a glimpse into the social structure we mentioned earlier in the video. These early peoples may have had a grasp on the concept of social status, and could have buried those who were revered or decorated in society with more grave goods than others. Such funerals may have been elaborate practices with various rituals and practices that have since been lost to the void of prehistoric time. Some archaeological studies have suggested that those born with disabilities or disorders at birth may have been well looked after and celebrated in their death. Around a third of Cro-Magnon burials reveal individuals with congenital disorders, and there is even some suggestion that human sacrifice may have been carried out in reverence of those with such disorders. Additional evidence for spirituality can be found in the potential use of body art amongst Cro-Magnon people. Human and animal figures in paintings and sculptures often show evidence of tattooing, with abstract patterns and colours being used to decorate body parts. Bipointed needles have also been uncovered from certain sites in France, such as those near the commune of La Mastazile, which may have been used to ink tattoos onto the tribe's people themselves too. This may have been a spiritual or religious practice that may have helped bring these ancient peoples closer to their gods and mythologies, but more research is needed to determine the exact meaning behind these patterns. Cro-Magnon people also decorated themselves with bright red ochre paint, which in some cases was traded over long distances with neighbouring tribes. Red ochre is specifically associated with burials, and the paint may have been applied as a funerary practice for the deceased and their mourners as they prepared to traverse the realms of the living and dead. If you're a modern European, then the chances are that you have Cro-Magnon DNA in you today. It's easy to think of the distant past as a forgotten time, but this could not be further from the case. Every European, from Iceland to Romania, and from Finland to Cyprus, can trace their lineage back to the Cro-Magnons that first settled in Europe over 30,000 years ago. These people did not disappear or go extinct, they were simply absorbed into the modern human genome, and direct evidence of them is visible in DNA sequences. The Cro-Magnon people were absorbed into the modern human genome around 10,000 years ago, just as Europe began to transition out of the Ice Age. This coincided with the rise of the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age period, a time that bridged the gap between the Paleolithic and Neolithic. The last true Cro-Magnons would have lived in a world where semi-permanent settlements were becoming more and more commonplace. They would have got used to new, geometrically chipped tools made from sharpened stone, and some may have witnessed the very last woolly mammoths in mainland Europe as they slowly became extinct. The descendants of the Cro-Magnon peoples would therefore remain in Europe for thousands of years to come, where they had time to develop new technologies, embrace migrations of people from Western Asia to bring in new ideas, and to eventually take up farming. Agriculture first appeared in Europe in Greece as early as 7,000 BCE, and was likely a technology that came from the Fertile Crescent, where ancient civilizations began to thrive. With the arrival of farming technologies in Europe, the descendants of the Cro-Magnons that first conquered the continent could cultivate and harvest their own food supplies, without having to rely on constant hunting and gathering to obtain a meal. Cro-Magnon cultures are some of the best understood Paleolithic communities in the ancient world, and much has been discerned about their lives and practices following the advent of modern archaeological methods. There is, however, much left to learn about these early Europeans, and how their lifestyles influenced the generations to follow. As more burials, archaeological sites, abandoned caves and stone tools are found, scientists may just be able to interpret more about Cro-Magnon society, and how their actions shape the future of Europe.