cro-magnons

Early European modern humans (EEMH), or Cro-Magnons, were the first early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') to settle in Europe, migrating from Western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They interacted and interbred with the indigenous Neanderthals (''H. neanderthalensis'') of Europe and Western Asia, who went extinct 40,000 to 35,000 years ago; and from 37,000 years ago onwards all EEMH descended from a single founder population which contributes ancestry to present-day Europeans. Early European modern humans (EEMH) produced Upper Palaeolithic cultures, the first major one being the Aurignacian, which was succeeded by the Gravettian by 30,000 years ago. The Gravettian split into the Epi-Gravettian in the east and Solutrean in the west, due to major climate degradation during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), peaking 21,000 years ago. As Europe warmed, the Solutrean evolved into the Magdalenian by 20,000 years ago, and these peoples recolonised Europe. The Magdalenian and Epi-Gravettian gave way to Mesolithic cultures as big game animals were dying out and the Last Glacial Period drew to a close.

EEMH were anatomically similar to present-day Europeans, but were more robust, having broader faces, more prominent brow ridges, and bigger teeth. The earliest EEMH specimens also exhibit features that are reminiscent of those found in Neanderthals, as well as modern day African, European and aboriginal Australian populations. The first EEMH would have had darker skin; natural selection for lighter skin would not begin until 30,000 years ago. Before the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum), EEMH had overall low population density, tall stature similar to post-industrial humans, expansive trade routes stretching as long as , and hunted big game animals. EEMH had much higher populations than the Neanderthals, possibly due to higher fertility rates; life expectancy for both species was typically under 40 years. Following the LGM, population density increased as communities travelled less frequently (though for longer distances), and the need to feed so many more people in tandem with the increasing scarcity of big game caused them to rely more heavily on small or aquatic game, and more frequently participate in game drive systems and slaughter whole herds at a time. The EEMH arsenal included spears, spear-throwers, harpoons, and possibly throwing sticks and Palaeolithic dogs. EEMH likely commonly constructed temporary huts while moving around, and Gravettian peoples notably made large huts on the East European Plain out of mammoth bones.

EEMH are well renowned for creating a diverse array of artistic works, including cave paintings, Venus figurines, perforated batons, animal figurines, and geometric patterns. They may have decorated their bodies with ochre crayons and perhaps tattoos, scarification, and piercings. The exact symbolism of these works remains enigmatic, but EEMH are generally (though not universally) thought to have practiced shamanism, in which cave art — specifically of those depicting human/animal hybrids — played a central part. They also wore decorative beads, and plant-fibre clothes dyed with various plant-based dyes, which were possibly used as status symbols. For music, they produced bone flutes and whistles, and possibly also bullroarers, rasps, drums, idiophones, and other instruments. They buried their dead, though possibly only people which had achieved or were born into high status received burial.

Remains of Palaeolithic cultures have been known for centuries, but they were initially interpreted in a creationist model, wherein they represented antediluvian peoples which were wiped out by the Great Flood. Following the conception and popularisation of evolution in the mid-to-late 19th century, EEMH became the subject of much scientific racism, with early race theories allying with Nordicism and Pan-Germanism. Such historical race concepts were overturned by the mid-20th century. During the first wave feminism movement, the Venus figurines were notably interpreted as evidence of some matriarchal religion, though such claims had mostly died down in academia by the 1970s.

Chronology

When early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') migrated onto the European continent, they interacted with the indigenous Neanderthals (''H. neanderthalensis'') which had already inhabited Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. In 2019, Greek palaeoanthropologist Katerina Harvati and colleagues argued that two 210,000 year old skulls from Apidima Cave, Greece, represent modern humans rather than Neanderthals — indicating these populations have an unexpectedly deep history — but this was disputed in 2020 by French paleoanthropologist and colleagues. About 60,000 years ago, marine isotope stage 3 began, characterised by volatile climatic patterns and sudden retreat and recolonisation events of forestland in way of open steppeland.

The earliest indication of Upper Palaeolithic modern human migration into Europe is a series of modern human teeth with Neronian industry stone tools found at Grotte Mandrin Cave, Malataverne in France, dated in 2022 to between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago. The Neronian is one of the many industries associated with modern humans classed as transitional between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Beyond this there is the Balkan Bohunician industry beginning 48,000 years ago, likely deriving from the Levantine Emiran industry, and the next oldest fossils date to roughly 45–43 thousand years ago in Bulgaria, Italy, and Britain. It is unclear, while migrating westward, if they followed the Danube or went along the Mediterranean coast. About 45 to 44 thousand years ago, the Proto-Aurignacian culture, the first widely-recognised European Upper Palaeolithic culture, spread out across Europe, probably descending from the Near Eastern Ahmarian culture. After 40,000 years ago with the onset of Heinrich event 4 (a period of extreme seasonality), the Aurignacian proper evolved perhaps in South-Central Europe, and rapidly replaced other cultures across the continent. This wave of modern humans replaced Neanderthals and their Mousterian culture. In the Danube Valley, the Aurignacian features sites few and far between, compared to later traditions, until 35,000 years ago. From here, the "Typical Aurignacian" becomes quite prevalent, and extends until 29,000 years ago.

The Aurignacian was gradually replaced by the Gravettian culture, but it is unclear when the Aurignacian went extinct because it is poorly defined. "Aurignacoid" or "Epi-Aurignacian" tools are identified as late as 18 to 15 thousand years ago. It is also unclear where the Gravettian originated from as it diverges strongly from the Aurignician (and therefore may not have descended from it). Nonetheless, genetic evidence indicates not all Aurignacian bloodlines went extinct. Hypotheses for Gravettian genesis include evolution: in Central Europe from the Szeletian (which developed from the Bohunician) which existed 41 to 37 thousand years ago; or from the Ahmarian or similar cultures from the Near East or the Caucasus which existed before 40,000 years ago. It is further debated where the earliest occurrence is identified, with the former hypothesis arguing for Germany about 37,500 years ago, and the latter III rockshelter in Crimea about 38 to 36 thousand years ago. In either case, the appearance of the Gravettian coincides with a significant temperature drop. Also around 37,000 years ago, the founder population of all later early European modern humans (EEMH) existed, and Europe would remain in genetic isolation from the rest of the world for the next 23,000 years.

Around 29,000 years ago, marine isotope stage 2 began and cooling intensified. This peaked about 21,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) when Scandinavia, the Baltic region, and the British Isles were covered in glaciers, and winter sea ice reached the French seaboard. The Alps were also covered in glaciers, and most of Europe was polar desert, with mammoth steppe and forest steppe dominating the Mediterranean coast. Consequently, large swathes of Europe were uninhabitable, and two distinct cultures emerged with unique technologies to adapt to the new environment: the Solutrean in Southwestern Europe which invented brand new technologies, and the Epi-Gravettian from Italy to the East European Plain which adapted the previous Gravettian technologies. Solutrean peoples inhabited the permafrost zone, whereas Epi-Gravettian peoples appear to have stuck to less harsh, seasonally frozen areas. Relatively few sites are known through this time. The glaciers began retreating about 20,000 years ago, and the Solutrean evolved into the Magdalenian, which would recolonise Western and Central Europe over the next couple thousand years. Starting during the Older Dryas roughly 14,000 years ago, Final Magdalenian traditions appear, namely the Azilian, Hamburgian, and Creswellian. During the Bølling–Allerød warming, Near Eastern genes began showing up in the indigenous Europeans, indicating the end of Europe's genetic isolation. Possibly due to the continual reduction of European big game, the Magdalenian and Epi-Gravettian were completely replaced by the Mesolithic by the beginning of the Holocene.

Europe was completely re-peopled during the Holocene climatic optimum from 9 to 5 thousand years ago. Mesolithic Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) contributed significantly to the present-day European genome, alongside Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) which descended from the Siberian Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers (CHG). Most present-day Europeans have a 40–60% WHG ratio, and the 8,000 year old Mesolithic Loschbour man seems to have had a similar genetic makeup. Near Eastern Neolithic farmers which split from the European hunter-gatherers about 40,000 years ago started to spread out across Europe by 8,000 years ago, ushering in the Neolithic with Early European Farmers (EEF). EEF contribute about 30% of ancestry to present-day Baltic populations, and up to 90% in present-day Mediterranean populations. The latter may have inherited WHG ancestry via EEF introgression. The Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) population identified around the steppes of the Urals also dispersed, and the Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers appear to be a mix of WHG and EHG. Around 4,500 years ago, the immigration of the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures from the eastern steppes brought the Bronze Age, the Proto-Indo-European language, and more or less the present-day genetic makeup of Europeans.

Classification

EEMH have historically been referred to as "Cro-Magnons" in scientific literature until around the 1990s when the term "anatomically modern humans" became more popular. The name "Cro-Magnon" comes from the 5 skeletons discovered by French palaeontologist Louis Lartet in 1868 at the Cro-Magnon rock shelter, Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France, after the area was accidentally discovered while clearing land for a railway station. Fossils and artefacts from the Palaeolithic had actually been known for decades, but these were interpreted in a creationist model (as the concept of evolution had not yet been conceived). For example, the Aurignacian Red Lady of Paviland (a young man) from South Wales was described by geologist Reverend William Buckland in 1822 as a citizen of Roman Britain. Subsequent authors contended the skeleton was either evidence of antediluvian (before the Great Flood) people in Britain, or was swept far from the inhabited lands farther south by the powerful floodwaters. Buckland assumed the specimen was a woman because he was adorned with jewellery (shells, ivory rods and rings, and a wolf-bone skewer), and Buckland also stated (possibly in jest) the jewellery was evidence of witchcraft. Around this time, the uniformitarianism movement was gaining traction, headed principally by Charles Lyell, arguing that fossil materials well predated the biblical chronology.

Following Charles Darwin's 1859 ''On the Origin of Species'', racial anthropologists and raciologists began splitting off putative subspecies and sub-races of present-day humans based on unreliable and pseudoscientific metrics gathered from anthropometry, physiognomy, and phrenology continuing into the 20th century. This was a continuation of Carl Linnaeus' 1735 ''Systema Naturae'', where he invented the modern classification system, in doing so classifying humans as ''Homo sapiens'' with several putative subspecies classifications for different races based on racist behavioural definitions (in accord with historical race concepts): "''H. s. europaeus''" (European descent, governed by laws), "''H. s. afer''" (African descent, impulse), "''H. s. asiaticus''" (Asian descent, opinions), and "''H. s. americanus''" (Native American descent, customs). The racial classification system was quickly extended to fossil specimens, including both EEMH and the Neanderthals, after the true extent of their antiquity was recognised. In 1869, Lartet had proposed the subspecies classification "''H. s. fossilis''" for the Cro-Magnon remains. Other supposed subraces of the 'Cro-Magnon race' included (among many others): "''H. pre-aethiopicus''" for a skull from Dordogne which had "Ethiopic affinities"; "''H. predmosti''" or "''H. predmostensis''" for a series of skulls from Brno, Czech Republic, purportedly transitional between Neanderthals and EEMH; ''H. mentonensis'' for a skull from Menton, France; "''H. grimaldensis''" for Grimaldi man and other skeletons near Grimaldi, Monaco; and "''H. aurignacensis''" or "''H. a. hauseri''" for the Combe-Capelle skull.

These 'fossil races', alongside Ernst Haeckel's idea of there being backwards races which require further evolution (social darwinism), popularised the view in European thought that the civilised white man had descended from primitive, low browed ape ancestors through a series of savage races. Prominent brow-ridges were classified as an ape-like trait, and consequently Neanderthals (as well as Aboriginal Australians) were considered a lowly race. These European fossils were considered to have been the ancestors to specifically living European races. Among the earliest attempts to classify EEMH was done by racial anthropologists Joseph Deniker and William Z. Ripley in 1900, who characterised them as tall and intelligent proto-Aryans, superior to other races, who descended from Scandinavia and Germany. Further race theories revolved around progressively lighter, blonder, and superior races (subspecies) evolving in Central Europe and spreading out in waves to replace their darker ancestors, culminating in the "Nordic race". These aligned well with Nordicism and Pan-Germanism (that is, Aryan supremacy), which gained popularity just before World War I, and was notably used by the Nazis to justify the conquest of Europe and the supremacy of the German people in World War II. Stature was among the characteristics used to distinguish these sub-races, so taller EEMH such as specimens from the French Cro-Magnon, Paviland, and Grimaldi sites were classified as ancestral to the "Nordic race", and smaller ones such as Combe-Capelle and Chancelade man (also from France) were considered the forerunners of either the "Mediterranean race" or "Eskimoids". The Venus figurines — sculptures of pregnant women with exaggerated breasts and thighs — were used as evidence of the presence of the "Negroid race" in Palaeolithic Europe, because they were interpreted as having been based on real women with steatopygia (a condition which causes thicker thighs, common in the women of the San people of Southern Africa) and the hairdos of some are supposedly similar to those seen in Ancient Egypt. By the 1940s, the positivism movement — which fought to remove political and cultural bias from science and had begun about a century earlier — had gained popular support in European anthropology. Due to this movement and raciology's associations with Nazism, raciology fell out of practice.

Demographics

The beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic is thought to have been characterised by a major population increase in Europe, with the human population of Western Europe possibly increasing by a factor of 10 in the Neanderthal/modern human transition. The archaeological record indicates that the overwhelming majority of Palaeolithic people (both Neanderthals and modern humans) died before reaching the age of 40, with few elderly individuals recorded. It is possible the population boom was caused by a significant increase in fertility rates.

A 2005 study estimated the population of Upper Palaeolithic Europe by calculating the total geographic area which was inhabited based on the archaeological record; averaged the population density of Chipewyan, Hän, Hill people, and Naskapi Native Americans which live in cold climates and applied to this to EEMH; and assumed that population density continually increased with time calculated by the change in the number of total sites per time period. The study calculated that: from 40 to 30 thousand years ago the population was roughly 1,700–28,400 (average 4,400); from 30 to 22 thousand years ago roughly 1,900–30,600 (average 4,800); from 22 to 16.5 thousand years ago roughly 2,300–37,700 (average 5,900); and 16.5–11.5 thousand years ago roughly 11,300–72,600 (average 28,700).

Following the LGM, EEMH are thought to have been much less mobile and featured a higher population density, indicated by seemingly shorter trade routes as well as symptoms of nutritional stress.

Biology

Physical attributes

For 28 modern human specimens from 190 to 25 thousand years ago, average brain volume was estimated to have been about , and for 13 EEMH about . In comparison, present-day humans average , which is notably smaller. This is because the EEMH brain, though within the variation for present-day humans, exhibits longer average frontal lobe length and taller occipital lobe height. The parietal lobes, however, are shorter in EEMH. It is unclear if this could equate to any functional differences between present-day and early modern humans.

EEMH are physically similar to present-day humans, with a globular braincase, completely flat face, gracile brow ridge, and defined chin. However, the bones of EEMH are somewhat thicker and more robust. The earliest EEMH display features that are reminiscent of those seen in Neanderthals, as well as features observed in modern day African, European, and aboriginal Australian populations. Aurignacians featured a higher proportion of traits somewhat reminiscent of Neanderthals, such as (though not limited to) a slightly flattened skullcap and consequent occipital bun protruding from the back of the skull (the latter could be quite defined). Their frequency significantly diminished in Gravettians, and in 2007, palaeoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus concluded these were remnants of Neanderthal introgression which were eventually bred out of the gene pool in his review of the relevant morphology.

In early Upper Palaeolithic Western Europe, 20 men and 10 women were estimated to have averaged and , respectively. This is similar to post-industrial modern Northern Europeans. In contrast, in a sample of 21 and 15 late Upper Palaeolithic Western European men and women, the averages were and , similar to pre-industrial modern humans. It is unclear why earlier EEMH were taller, especially considering that cold-climate creatures are short-limbed and thus short-statured to better retain body heat. This has variously been explained as: retention of a hypothetically tall ancestral condition; higher-quality diet and nutrition due to the hunting of megafauna which later became uncommon or extinct; functional adaptation to increase stride length and movement efficiency while running during a hunt; increasing territorialism among later EEMH reducing gene flow between communities and increasing inbreeding rate; or statistical bias due to small sample size or because taller people were more likely to achieve higher status in a group before the LGM and thus were more likely to be buried and preserved.

Prior to genetic analysis, it was generally assumed that EEMH, like present-day Europeans, were light skinned as an adaptation to better generate vitamin D from the less luminous sun farther north. However, of the 3 predominant genes responsible for lighter skin in present-day Europeans — KITLG, SLC24A5, and SLC45A2 — the latter two, as well as the TYRP1 gene associated with lighter hair and eye colour, experienced positive selection as late as 19 to 11 thousand years ago during the Mesolithic transition. The variation of the gene which is associated with blue eyes in present-day humans, OCA2, seems to have descended from a common ancestor about 10–6 thousand years ago somewhere in Northern Europe. Such a late timing was potentially caused by overall low population and/or low cross-continental movement required for such an adaptive shift in skin, hair, and eye colouration. However, KITLG experienced positive selection in EEMH (as well as East Asians) beginning approximately 30,000 years ago.

Genetics

While anatomically modern humans have been present outside of Africa during some isolated time intervals potentially as early as 250,000 years ago, present-day non-Africans descend from the out of Africa expansion which occurred around 65–55 thousand years ago. This movement was an offshoot of the rapid expansion within East Africa associated with mtDNA haplogroup L3. Mitochondrial DNA analysis places EEMH as the sister group to Upper Palaeolithic East Asian groups ("Proto-Mongoloid"), divergence occurring roughly 50,000 years ago.

Initial genomic studies on the earliest EEMH in 2014, namely on the 37,000-year-old Kostenki-14 individual, identified 3 major lineages which are also present in present-day Europeans: one related to all later EEMH; a "Basal Eurasian" lineage which split from the common ancestor of present-day Europeans and East Asians before they split from each other; and another related to a 24,000-year-old individual from the Siberian Mal'ta–Buret' culture (near Lake Baikal). Contrary to this, Fu et al. (2016), evaluating much earlier European specimens, including Ust'-Ishim and Oase-1 from 45,000 years ago, found no evidence of a "Basal Eurasian" component to the genome, nor did they find evidence of Mal'ta–Buret' introgression when looking at a wider range of EEMH from the entire Upper Palaeolithic. The study instead concluded that such a genetic makeup in present-day Europeans stemmed from Near Eastern and Siberian introgression occurring predominantly in the Neolithic and the Bronze Age (though beginning by 14,000 years ago), but all EEMH specimens including and following Kostenki-14 contributed to the present-day European genome and were more closely related to present-day Europeans than East Asians. Earlier EEMH (10 tested in total), on the other hand, did not seem to be ancestral to any present-day population, nor did they form any cohesive group in and of themselves, each representing either completely distinct genetic lineages, admixture between major lineages, or have highly divergent ancestry. Because of these, the study also concluded that, beginning roughly 37,000 years ago, EEMH descended from a single founder population and were reproductively isolated from the rest of the world. The study reported that an Aurignacian individual from Grottes de Goyet, Belgium, has more genetic affinities to the Magdalenian inhabitants of Cueva de El Mirón, Spain, than to more or less contemporaneous Eastern European Gravettians.

Haplogroups identified in EEMH are the patrilineal (from father to son) Y-DNA haplogroups IJ, C1, and K2a; and matrilineal (from mother to child) mt-DNA haplogroup N, R, and U. Y-haplogroup IJ descended from Southwest Asia. Haplogroup I emerged about 35 to 30 thousand years ago, either in Europe or West Asia. Mt-haplogroup U5 arose in Europe just prior to the LGM, between 35 and 25 thousand years ago. The 14,000 year old Villabruna 1 skeleton from Ripari Villabruna, Italy, is the oldest identified bearer of Y-haplogroup R1b (R1b1a-L754* (xL389,V88)) found in Europe, likely brought in from eastern introgression. The Azilian "Bichon man" skeleton from the Swiss Jura was found to be associated with the WHG lineage. He was a bearer of Y-DNA haplogroup I2a and mtDNA haplogroup U5b1h.

Genetic evidence suggests early modern humans interbred with Neanderthals. Genes in the present-day genome are estimated to have entered about 65 to 47 thousand years ago, most likely in West Asia soon after modern humans left Africa. In 2015, the 40,000 year old modern human Oase 1 was found to have had 6–9% (point estimate 7.3%) Neanderthal DNA, indicating a Neanderthal ancestor up to four to six generations earlier, but this hybrid Romanian population does not appear to have made a substantial contribution to the genomes of later Europeans. Therefore, it is possible that interbreeding was common between Neanderthals and EEMH which did not contribute to the present-day genome. The percentage of Neanderthal genes gradually decreased with time, which could indicate they were maladaptive and were selected out of the gene pool.

Valini et al. 2022 found that Europe was populated by three distinct lineages, the earliest inhabitants (represented by Zlaty Kun ~50kya) split from the common Eurasian lineage before the divergence of Western and Eastern Eurasians, but after the divergence of the hypothetical Basal-Eurasians. This earliest sample did not cluster with any modern human population, including Africans, and died out without leaving ancestry to modern peoples. The second wave (represented by Bacho Kiro ~45kya) appeared to be more closely related to modern East Asians and Australasians compared to Europeans, suggesting that this lineage split initially after the formation of Eastern Eurasians, and migrated instead northwestwards into Europe. This lineage similarly did not contribute ancestry to later populations, and was replaced by a West-Eurasian lineage (~40kya), which expanded into Europe and Siberia. Proper Aurignacian people (40-26kya) were still part of a large Western Eurasian "meta-population", related to Paleolithic Siberian and Western Asian populations. Earlier samples (such as the Bacho Kiro sample) were relatively closer to East Asians and Australasians, although distinct from them.

Culture

There is a notable technological complexification coinciding with the replacement of Neanderthals with EEMH in the archaeological record, and so the terms "Middle Palaeolithic" and "Upper Palaeolithic" were created to distinguish between these two time periods. Largely based on Western European archaeology, the transition was dubbed the "Upper Palaeolithic Revolution," (extended to be a worldwide phenomenon) and the idea of " behavioural modernity" became associated with this event and early modern cultures. It is largely agreed that the Upper Palaeolithic seems to feature a higher rate of technological and cultural evolution than the Middle Palaeolithic, but it is debated if behavioural modernity was truly an abrupt development or was a slow progression initiating far earlier than the Upper Paleolithic, especially when considering the non-European archaeological record. Behaviourly modern practices include: the production of microliths, the common use of bone and antler, the common use of grinding and pounding tools, high quality evidence of body decoration and figurine production, long-distance trade networks, and improved hunting technology.Bar-Yosef, O & Zilhão, J (eds) 2002: Towards a definition of the Aurignacian. Proceedings of the Symposium held in Lisbon, Portugal, June 25–30. ''Trabalhos de Arqueologia'' no 45. 381 pp
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/ref> In regard to art, the Magdalenian produced some of the most intricate Palaeolithic pieces, and they even elaborately decorated normal, everyday objects.

Hunting and gathering

Historically, ethnographic studies on hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies have long placed emphasis on sexual division of labour and most especially the hunting of big game by men. This culminated in the 1966 book '' Man the Hunter'', which focuses almost entirely on the importance of male contributions of food to the group. As this was published during the second-wave feminism movement, this was quickly met with backlash from many female anthropologists. Among these was Australian archaeologist Betty Meehan in her 1974 article ''Woman the Gatherer'', who argued that women play a vital role in these communities by gathering more reliable food plants and small game, as big game hunting has a low success rate. The concept of "Woman the Gatherer" has since gained significant support.

It has typically been assumed that EEMH closely studied prey habits in order to maximise return depending on the season. For example, large mammals (including red deer, horses, and ibex) congregate seasonally, and reindeer were possibly seasonally plagued by insects rendering fur sometimes unsuitable for hideworking. There is much evidence that EEMH, especially in Western Europe following the LGM, corralled large prey animals into natural confined spaces (such as against a cliff wall, a cul-de-sac, or a water body) in order to efficiently slaughter whole herds of animals (game drive system). They seem to have scheduled mass kills to coincide with migration patterns, in particular for red deer, horses, reindeer, bison, aurochs, and ibex, and occasionally woolly mammoths. There are also multiple examples of consumption of seasonally abundant fish, becoming more prevalent in the mid-Upper-Palaeolithic. Nonetheless, Magdalenian peoples appear to have had a greater dependence on small animals, aquatic resources, and plants than predecessors, probably due to the relative scarcity of European big game following the LGM (Quaternary extinction event). Post-LGM peoples tend to have a higher rate of nutrient deficiency related ailments, including a reduction in height, which indicates these bands (probably due to decreased habitable territory) had to consume a much broader and less desirable food range to survive. The popularisation of game drive systems may have been an extension of increasing food return. In particularly southwestern France, EEMH depended heavily upon reindeer, and so it is hypothesised that these communities followed the herds, with occupation of the Perigord and the Pyrenees only occurring in the summer. Epi-Gravettian communities, in contrast, generally focused on hunting one species of large game, most commonly horse or bison. It is possible that human activity, in addition to the rapid retreat of favourable steppeland, inhibited recolonisation of most of Europe by megafauna following the LGM (such as mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, Irish elk, and cave lions), in part contributing to their final extinction which occurred by the beginning of or well into the Holocene depending on the species.

For weapons, EEMH crafted spearpoints using predominantly bone and antler, possibly because these materials were readily abundant. Compared to stone, these materials are compressive, making them fairly shatterproof. These were then hafted onto a shaft to be used as javelins. It is possible that Aurignacian craftsmen further hafted bone barbs onto the spearheads, but firm evidence of such technology is recorded earliest 23,500 years ago, and does not become more common until the Mesolithic. Aurignacian craftsmen produced lozenge-shaped (diamond-like) spearheads. By 30,000 years ago, spearheads were manufactured with a more rounded-off base, and by 28,000 years ago spindle-shaped heads were introduced. During the Gravettian, spearheads with a bevelled base were being produced. By the beginning of the LGM, the spear-thrower was invented in Europe, which can increase the force and accuracy of the projectile. A possible boomerang made of mammoth tusk was identified in Poland (though it may have been unable to return to the thrower), and dating to 23,000 years ago, it would be the oldest known boomerang. Stone spearheads with leaf- and shouldered-points become more prevalent in the Solutrean. Both large and small spearheads were produced in great quantity, and the smaller ones may have been attached to projectile darts. Archery was possibly invented in the Solutrean, though less ambiguous bow technology is first reported in the Mesolithic. Bone technology was revitalised in the Magdalanian, and long-range technology as well as harpoons become much more prevalent. Some harpoon fragments are speculated to have been leisters or tridents, and true harpoons are commonly found along seasonal salmon migration routes.

Society

Social system

As opposed to the patriarchy prominent in historical societies, the idea of a prehistoric predominance of either matriarchy or matrifocal families (centred on motherhood) was first supposed in 1861 by legal scholar Johann Jakob Bachofen. The earliest models of this believed that monogamy was not widely practiced in ancient times — thus, the paternal line was resultantly more difficult to keep track of than the maternal — resulting in a matrilineal (and matriarchal) society. Matriarchs were then conquered by patriarchs at the dawn of civilisation. The switch from matriarchy to patriarchy and the hypothetical adoption of monogamy was seen as a leap forward. However, when the first Palaeolithic representations of humans were discovered, the so-called Venus figurines — which typically feature pronounced breasts, buttocks, and vulvas (areas generally sexualised in present-day Western Culture) — they were initially interpreted as pornographic in nature. The first Venus discovered was named the "Vénus impudique" ("immodest Venus") by the discoverer Paul Hurault, 8th Marquis de Vibraye, because it lacked clothes and had a prominent vulva. The name "Venus", after the Roman goddess of beauty, in itself implies an erotic function. Such a pattern in the representation of the human form led to suggestions that human forms were generally pornography for men, meaning men were primarily responsible for artwork and craftsmanship in the Palaeolithic whereas women were tasked with child rearing and various domestic works. This would equate to a patriarchal social system.

The Palaeolithic matriarchy model was adapted by prominent communist Friedrich Engels