570 



The Earth and Its Inhabitants Change unit x 



Fig. 520 Using avail able jacis, an artist made this painting of Cro-Magnon life in a 

 cave. One man is scnlptiiring on a wall, (logan imuseum, beloit college) 



The skull of Homo sapiens differs 

 from that of all other species in having 

 much thinner walls and a much more 

 rounded or vaulted form. The face is far 

 more delicate and the large eye ridges 

 of more primitive men are absent. The 

 first skeletons of prehistoric Homo sa- 

 piens were found manv years ago in Eu- 

 rope. Since then the number of discov- 

 eries has increased year by year. Fossils 

 of Homo sapiens have been found in 

 China, too. 



One type of Homo sapiens living in 

 southern France and Spain some 25,000 

 years ago was Cro-Magnon man. Because 

 of the size of Cro-Magnon men, their 

 well-proportioned bodies and regular 

 features with large eyes, many of us 

 would like to claim them as our ances- 

 tors. Since their bones were among the 

 first remains of Homo sapiens to be 

 found, Cro-Magnon men attracted much 

 attention, and they have been much 

 written about. But they were just one 

 of many types of the early Homo 

 sapiens. 



How Homo sapiens lived 25,000 years 

 ago. From the large number of artifacts 

 found in the caves inhabited by men of 

 our species during the last glacial period, 

 we hav^e a rather complete picture of 

 their culture. It shows a grreat advance 

 over that of Neandertal men. As the 

 glaciers once more began to recede and 

 summers became warm these modern 

 men lived in the open, hunting and ex- 

 ploring. During the winter they retired 

 to their caves. Existing animals were 

 the woolly rhinoceros and mammoth left 

 over from the age of Neandertal men. 

 Gradually horses, bison, and deerlike 

 animals appeared. There is no evidence 

 that the horse was domesticated but it 

 probably served as food. In one spot 

 alone the remains of 100,000 horses and 

 35,000 flint implements were found. 

 There is reason to believe that these men 

 sometimes used lamps in the caves. It is 

 possible that, besides roasting meat over 

 an open fire, they had learned to cook 

 their meat by dropping heated stones 

 into vsater. Instead of using pots they 



