ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Late Ice Age world of 50,000 to 15,000 years ago and the settlement of the Old World, and the Americas, by Homo sapiens. In Europe, elaborate hunter-gatherer societies adapted to constantly changing climatic conditions and extreme cold, both in the sheltered valleys of Spain and France and in the more open country of Eurasia after 45,000 years ago. Surviving Neanderthal populations were extinct by about 30,000 years ago, despite DNA evidence for sporadic interbreeding with modern people. By 60,000 years ago, H. sapiens was well established in East and Southeast Asia, with the first settlement of Australia, helped by low sea levels, taking place by at least 50,000. Siberian hunter-gatherers crossed into Alaska by about 15,000 years ago, via the Bering Land Bridge. By 14,000 years ago, scattered human groups had reached South America. Two thousand years later, Clovis people were widespread in North America.
