Dr. Nils Olof Hoist — The Ice Age in England. 505 



It is well known to archaeologists that after the Mousterian stage, 

 in other words, after the maximum of glaciation, which is usually 

 described as a moist period, that is to say, not too intensely cold, the 

 climate during the Aurignacian and Solutrian stages began to improve. 

 This no doubt led to a rapid and considerable melting of the inland 

 ice, but found no further expression than that it was still possible 

 for the northern animals to remain in Middle Europe. During the 

 Magdalenian period, on the contrary, the winter of the Ice Age 

 retui-ned, now in increased strength, killing off certain pre-glacial 

 animals which had succeeded in living through all the preceding 

 stages of the Ice Age, e.g. the mammoth and the cave bear, and 

 drove others away from Northern Europe, e.g. the lion, the hyaena, and 

 the horse. From this the conclusion may be drawn that during the 

 Magdalenian period the cold was stronger than during the whole of 

 the preceding Ice Age. It was in the Magdalenian that the reindeer 

 first began to thrive in Middle Europe, and indeed became so 

 numerous that the whole of the Magdalenian can with good reason be 

 called ' l'age du renne '. Another result of the increased cold is the 

 new advance of the inland ice. This resulted in a so-called zone of 

 oscillation. 



The milder climate of that part of the Ice Age which is older than 

 the Magdalenian has often evoked the doubt whether the Ice Age 

 really had a cold climate. In 1907 R. F. Scharff ' reverted to this 

 question, and taking his stand on observations made by himself and 

 others, such as Saporta and Tscherski, expressed the opinion that the 

 climate of the Ice Age was not colder than that at present obtaining. 

 " Saporta," he said, "contended, indeed, from a study of the plants, 

 that the climate of Europe during the glacial period, at some distance 

 from the glaciers, was milder, though more humid, than it is now." 

 This is certainly correct if the words here italicized by me be given 

 their due weight, and if the opinion is confined to those warmer 

 phases of the Ice Age to whose rather temperate climate both fauna 

 and flora bear clear witness. 



As regards the fauna, it is enough to refer to Dechelette's 2 account 

 of the mammals during the Aurignacian and Solutrian stages. The 

 concordant palseobotanical researches of Carl Weber and N. Hartz 

 have made known the flora in the most southerly districts where the 

 ice first melted in North Germany and Jutland ; and this shows, with 

 equal or perhaps even greater clearness than the fauna, that the 

 temperature cannot have been low during this period of melting. 

 But the exhaustive researches of Weber on the peat bogs of 

 Honerdingen near Walsrode, about 50 kilometres north of Hanover,* 

 have shown that the peat flora during the warmest time of the 

 formation of the peat indicates a temperature higher than that now 

 obtaining there, " yet not greater than that now obtaining in 

 Thuringia," the middle point of which lies at about two degrees of 



1 B. F. Scharff, 1907. European Animals, London, pp. 45-7. 



2 J. Dechelette, 1908. Manuel oVarcli&ologie, i, see p. 127 (Aurignacian 

 fauna) and p. 134 (Solutrian fauna). Cf. p. 93 (Mousterian fauna). 



3 C. A. Weber, 1896. " Ueber die fossile Flora von Honerdingen und das 

 nordwest-deutsche Diluvium" : Abh. Naturw. Ver. Bremen, Bd. 13, pp. 413-68. 



