Fig. 135. Geographic distribution of Upper Palæolithic human fossils in western Europe.

We must therefore imagine western Europe in Upper Palæolithic times again as a terminal region; a great peninsula toward which the human migrants from the east and from the south came to mingle and superpose their cultures. These races took the great migration routes which had been followed by other waves of animal life before them; they were pressed upon from behind by the increasing populations of the east; they were attracted to western Europe as a fresh and wonderful game country, where food in the forests, in the meadows, and in the streams abounded in unparalleled profusion. The Crô-Magnons especially were a nomadic hunting people, perfectly fitted by their physical structure for the chase and developing an extraordinary appreciation of the beauty and majesty of the varied forms of animal life which existed in no other part of the world at the time. Between the retreating Alpine and Scandinavian glaciers Europe was freely open toward the eastern plains of the Danube, extending to central and southern Asia; on the north, however, along the Baltic, the climate was still too inclement for a wave of human migration, and there is no trace of man along these northern shores until the close of the Upper Palæolithic, nor of any residence of man in the Scandinavian peninsula until the great wave of Neolithic migration established itself in that region.

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Fig. 136. Epitome of human history in western Europe during the Third Interglacial, Fourth Glacial, and Postglacial Stages; showing also the three Postglacial advances and retreats which succeeded the close of the Fourth Glacial Stage in the Alpine region, theoretically corresponding with the climatic vicissitudes of Postglacial time. From the data of Penck and Schmidt. Drawn by C. A. Reeds. (Compare Fig. 14.)

The climatic and cultural relations of Upper Palæolithic times may be correlated[AL] in descending order as follows:

6. The Daun or final Postglacial advance of the glaciers of the Alps, estimated at 7,000 B. C. Europe with its modern or prehistoric forest fauna, the lion lingering in the Pyrenees, the moose in Spain. Azilian-Tardenoisian, closing stage of the Upper Palæolithic culture; western Europe peopled by the broad-headed race of Furfooz and Ofnet, also by a narrow-headed race. Baltic Migration, Maglemose culture.

5. The Gschnitz stage in the Alps or second Postglacial advance. Climate still cold and moist but gradually moderating. Decline of the Magdalenian. Period of the retreat of the tundra and steppe animals; mammoth, reindeer, and arctic rodents becoming more rare; Eurasiatic forest mammals becoming more abundant.

Close of steppe period. Crô-Magnon race still dominant in western Europe in the Late Magdalenian stage of culture.

4. Interval between the Bühl and Gschnitz Postglacial advances in the Alps. A renewed steppe and 'loess' period. Climate cold and dry. Mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, full tundra and steppe fauna very abundant. Crô-Magnon race in the stage of Middle Magdalenian culture.