ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the rapidly changing late Ice Age world of about 50,000 to 15,000 years ago. It shows how humans first adapted to extreme arctic climates and developed highly specialized forager cultures that subsisted off cold-loving animals such as the mammoth and steppe bison. The chapter discusses the radiation of Homo sapiens throughout the Old World and then turns to one of the most controversial subjects in modern archaeology, the first settlement of the Americas. In more temperate and tropical latitudes, the effects of the last glaciation are harder to detect in geological strata. Radiocarbon dating is the primary method used to date the archaeological record from between about 40,000 years ago and the past 2,000 years. The Cro-Magnons entered Europe during a brief period of more temperate climate. Even then, climatic conditions and seasonal contrasts may have been such as to require new artifacts and much more sophisticated hunting and foraging skills.
