MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
rarely oceur in this region. It came to an end with the 
close of the Old Stone Age itself, when the Capsian culture 
gradually developed into what is known as the Tardenoi- 
sian, belonging to that phase of human progress called the 
Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, to be discussed in the next 
chapter. 
With the end of the Old Stone Age, climatic conditions 
in Europe became more nearly what they have been ever 
since. Once again, after the close of the Magdalenian 
epoch, a minor advance of the glaciers took place, known 
in the Alpine region as the Daun, but it was far less severe 
than that of the Gschnitz, and still less so than the Buhl. 
Since then the changes seem to have been not so much in 
respect of temperature as in that of humidity; certain 
periods have been less moist and rainy than others. 
But on the whole, conditions in western Europe once 
again became favorable to the growth of trees, which, 
undisturbed by man through long ages, often attained a 
very great size. From the end of the Old Stone Age down 
to comparatively recent times, much of Europe was cov- 
ered with dense, impenetrable forest, the dark and awe- 
some Urwald, or “Ancient Wood,” of Germanic myth and 
story. 
With the comparative amelioration of the climate, many 
of the animals familiar to the men of the Old Stone Age 
disappeared from western Europe. Some, like the mam- 
moth and the woolly rhinoceros, had perhaps already 
found a temporary haven in northern Siberia, only in the 
end to die out altogether. Others, such as the reindeer, 
the musk ox, and the wolverine, still survive in far north- 
ern regions, where the climate today resembles that of 
Europe during the Ice Age. Doubtless these migrations 
of the accustomed food animals played a great, perhaps a 
decisive, part in the movements and modifications of the 
human populations of the time. For food habits of long 
standing are particularly stubborn things, and rapid and 
compulsory adjustments to changed conditions are ex- 
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