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0 Cro-Magnon
areas, perforated shells in others, sculptures in others, limestone
engravings in yet others. Different caves even bore the
mark of individual artists. The oldest known cave, Chauvet
in France, has about 260 paintings, many of them of rhinoceroses.
The rhinoceros is rare among the paintings in other
caves. The Chauvet rhinoceros paintings have a distinctive
type of horn and ears, which anthropologists interpret as
the work of a single artist. By comparison, the culture of the
Neandertals, revealed only by their stone tools, was more
geographically uniform.
A closer examination of the evidence called into question
the idea that Cro-Magnons had evolved from Neandertals.
• There were no clear examples of humans intermediate
between Neandertals and Cro-Magnons. Some traits of
some remains appeared intermediate, but the vast majority
of specimens of Neandertals and Cro-Magnon were clearly
one or the other.
• There appeared to be no evidence for the gradual evolution
of culture among the Cro-Magnon. The oldest of the
Cro-Magnon caves, Chauvet in France, was painted 33,000
years ago and exhibited as advanced an artistic capacity as
any of the later caves. There was no evidence of gradual
advancement from the Mousterian stone tool industry used
by the Neandertals to the more advanced stone tools made
by the Cro-Magnon (see technology). Some Neandertal
sites in southern France adopted a more advanced stone
tool technology, called the Châtelperronian. The fact that
the only Neandertals to do so were those who lived at the
same time and place as the Cro-Magnon implies that they
Bars represent approximate periods of time in which Cro-Magnon sites
were occupied in each region. There is a general pattern of migration
from Eastern Europe and northern Spain to southwest France. The
Neanderthal Châtelperronian culture existed at the same time and place
(southern France) as the Aurignacian Cro-Magnon culture. (Adapted from
Lewis-Williams)
adopted the technological advance from the Cro-Magnon,
or perhaps even stole the tools from them.
• It appeared that there was a general trend for the older
caves to be in eastern Europe, and the newer caves in western
Europe (see figure on page 104).
The lack of intermediate fossils, the sudden emergence of
art, and the progress of culture westward across Europe, all
suggested that the Cro-Magnons were descendants of immigrants
rather than of Neandertals. The immigrants, presumably
H. sapiens from Africa, would have encountered the
Neandertals and displaced them by competition. This hypothesis
is part of the Out of Africa theory that claims all modern
humans, including Europeans, Orientals, Australian aborigines,
and Native Americans, dispersed from Africa less than
100,000 years ago. It is supported by DNA evidence from
both H. sapiens and from Neandertals, which most evolutionary
scientists now consider to have been a species of humans,
H. neanderthalensis, that evolved separately from an African
ancestor similar to Homo ergaster (see DNA [evidence
for evolution]; Neandertals).
The Out of Africa hypothesis would explain not only the
lack of anatomical and cultural intermediates between Neandertals
and Cro-Magnon but also the rapid development of
art and religion among the Cro-Magnon. The immigrants
would have brought with them the capacity for art and religion.
The immediate ancestors of the immigrants, the Homo
sapiens of the Middle East and Africa, did not produce such
an astounding array of artistic works. Artifacts such as the
intricate ivory harpoon from Katanda in Africa, believed to
be 90,000 years old, showed that H. sapiens had the capacity
to produce the kind of art that the Cro-Magnon had (see
Homo sapiens). The earlier H. sapiens had the capacity
but had not experienced the stimulus to produce great art.
The encounter with the Neandertals, who were just similar
enough to them to be a threat, may have stimulated the
Cro-Magnon to develop cultural complexity, which provided
them with superior survival skills as well as integrating the
tribes with cultural identity.
The cultural explosion of the Cro-Magnon continued
after the last Neandertals became extinct about 30,000 years
ago. Anthropologists usually attribute this to the most recent
of the ice ages which was at its climax between 30,000
and 15,000 years ago. Northern Europe was covered with
glaciers, and this forced some Cro-Magnon southward into
regions already inhabited by other Cro-Magnon. The resulting
conflict created conditions that favored the development
of cultural identity and cohesion within each tribe.
No one knows why the Cro-Magnon people, who
became the European tribes, stopped painting caves and producing
as many other cultural artifacts about 10,000 years
ago. The end of the Cro-Magnon high culture coincided with
the end of the ice age. After that time, migrations of tribes
from the east displaced or mixed with many of the descendants
of the Cro-Magnon. The new immigrants, revealed by
both DNA (see markers) and language, were primarily the
speakers of Indo-European languages. They may have driven
some tribes into extinction, while other tribes adopted the