European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 30, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                They created culture a new image for ice age per by Gayle Young United press International hey lived in an ice world surrounded by woolly beasts and a profusion of plants that sprang Lomo Only in the Brief Days of a cold summer. Their Homes were made of Bones and hides their Dothes of animal skins. They got most of heir food by Hunting Wilh wooden spools and gathering berries. Out irom this hostile environment some anthropologists believe ice age Man created the elements that would later define the greatest civilizations. He had Art and music language god Griel. Adorn rent culinary skills abstract ideas and a father wicked sense of humor. Yes 1 think they have gained More  said anthropologist Randall while of the people popularly known As Cavemen. There still is a problem in the popular imagination of a stooping brutish tout with a club. Really. Hsy were  he said. They looked like us thought like us. The Only difference is that they lived in an environment that most people could t live in for More than a Lew Days. And they created culture. We be just improved on  ice age people Are the subject of an exhibit thai opened in october at the american museum of natural history in new York. White was one of the curators who Drew together ice age ail objects and tools from around the world in an Effort that has Given anthropologists a Chance to Lake a new look at a very old subject. There was always Loo much emphasis on finding the earliest thing that walked on two legs said while a professor of anthropology at new York University. We Don t know anything More about Why we Are the Way a Are than we did 20 years ago. This is a Chance to look at whal we have what we began As our earliest ancestors made the first tools about 2 million years ago. According to experts and the civilization of ice age people developed on the european continent 30,000 to 10,000 years ago. In Between about 1.5 million years ago Earth underwent a dramatic climatic Coaling known As the ice age. There have been several period of intense glaciation during the last 1 .5 million years in the Northern hemisphere with warmer periods in Between. The current warm period began when the last major glaciers receded from Europe 1 2,000 years ego. A Emray Ade Tjit believe that the earlier part of the ice age belonged to the neanderthals a robust and thicker boned people than Modem humans. Although Hoy have been considered very human like recent theories suggest their gestation period lasted 12 to 13 months and some anthropologists say their similarity to modern humans Haa been overstated. What strikes anthropologists most about neanderthals they say is their total Lack of mental advancement Over the thousands of years of their existence. Tools mad 40,000 years ago Are identical to tools made 60,000 years ago. Tha objects left behind Lor us to tudy do not Bear even the Lem Tonce of marking and their hearths appear simple and Bare. By. Evolutionary standards their end wit hidden.  to debate whether the neanderthals were somehow wiped out by Modem Man or died of Tome unknown catastrophe. But by 32,000 yearn ago they seem to have disappeared comp4etety, or at least there is no evidence of them existing alter Hal Dale. At Tutt opening of the american museum of natural history exhibit professional musician Jelte Atema of Woods Hote mass., held a replica of the first known wind instrument which scientists believe we made 30 ,000 years ago. To was a flute four holes bored into a hollow Bone with a broken mouthpiece on one end. Atema blew i hip shr notes that were kid and dear. It has the rang of a Soprano about one and half octaves he saw appreciatively to i Reaty More Nee a recorder la t High pitched but it has a very pure  ice Oge people p n re new peretto Fly As  learn mom about of Fern. Aloma who also works As a Marine biologist at the Woods Hole oceanographic Institute eat Back on a railing surrounding the replica of an ancient dwelling and thought about the person who made the world s first known instrument. What possessed them. I Don t know he said. No other animal has musical instruments other than perhaps their voices it must be some need that humans alone have to make sound and rhythm to make music. When you think of All that s come irom this he said lifting the Small replica then you really have to be impressed. They took some sort of leap that la really  on the surface it would seem that late ice age Man in Europe would have Little Lime to make music or paint on Walls. They were hemmed in by towering sheets of ice. And their climate was cold and dry during the millennium when glaciers advanced. The ground was probably covered by Snow most of the year. Europe is believed to have had a landscape of grasslands Wilh a few Trees then. But mountains and River valleys probably held an abundance of Plant Fife. The plants supported an ancient zoo of animals woolly mammoths Reindeer Bison and Stocky horses coexisted with humans. Ii was a thinking Man s environment White said. They had to contend with More than we do  the Centrepiece of the museum s exhibit is a 16 ton Bone dwelling the remains of which were found in the Ukraine in 1976. The round Igloo shaped hut was formed by arranging the thigh and jaw Bones of Many Tow Leah of Trig Bof Tede  plugged with mud and grass. Archaeology Fla estimate it b 15,000years old. On a Day a Jay Bash they probably got up in the morning sometimes in a Camp and sometimes i a Cave and want to work White said. They Ware nomads but twi in the sense they were wandering aimless by they in where they Wei going to be next Seacon and next week. Periodically we know they met with other tribes or what have you for massive gel  contrary to the Modem perception of Cavemen wearing Loose skins lied at a Knol at the shoulder tale toe age people probably wore tailored clothes.  believe this because they have found Bone Needles As Fine As any made today and drawings on rocks and Cave wac depict people wearing whal the car that they wore to their Graves of not survive the Oarr tuna but the Eta comte Bone and the Bead work that waa sewn into them Nave they decorated them Tate White said. We have depictions of women that show they had Coiffe Urs hairstyles. Nothing elaborate but they groomed. We have depictions of men both bearded and not bearded. They were  they were cooking too. Archaeologists have dug through garbage pits and come up Wilh the remains of Many dinners. Mostly ice age Man ate Reindeer and since the Bones Are charred his meals were probably cooked. Small earthen Clay pits filled Wilh Burnt rocks have scientists theorizing that they boiled water by throwing in heated stones. They were a big healthy people while said. They were As tall As we Are today and we be found the remains of men in their 60s. We be found evidence of very very few tooth  what anthropologists know Little of is Ico ago Man s social life. Theories brought Forward in the 1950s had Cav women at Home raising the Young while their mates stalked game on the Tundra. But Many anthropologists have since dismissed the picture of the Early nuclear family As a by product of the Era in which it was conceived. The Graves of More men than women have been uncovered but those women who were buried received the same decorations honors and gifts a the men. The most elaborate Graves were those of children. They grieved White said. They also had a sense of humor. There is a Bas Relief Here of a Bison behind the Bent Over figure of a Man who is about to get it in the rear end. They were Happy sad they were industrious Lazy he said. They were us. But they were the first to have Complex notions to think to reason. People believe god Mode Earth he said. A wife created god 30,000 Yean ago. Their Art. Probably Iheke Musta we tym Boic. They were dealing with Force they could t see but they could  much of Man s earliest Art Coni lats of drawings of hunted animate and figurines of pregnant women. Met anthropologists like White believe the Art had a purpose. They did t do this in their free time became they had nothing Batter to do White mid. This was an important part of their Eves abstract scratches on Bone end Stone implements appear so frequently some  believe they Are the hieroglyphics of an Early Complex language. And the fat voluptuous figurines often called Venus a Are the. Center of it raging debate Aslo the significance tart my figures tithe stories draw out we on Rock. The stars and 6trk8