How Early Humans Survived the Ice Age
Our human ancestors used their creative brains to devise strategies and make tools that helped them survive the cold weather and climates.
An ice age is a period in global geological history where the temperature gets colder to a level of freezing, and most of the landmass gets under a thick ice sheet cover. An ice age is also called the glacial age because, during this age, the world experience a glacial expansion that may last for millions of years that drastically redesign and reshape certain features of the continents.
The most recent ice age happened some 21000 to 24000 years ago when northern Europe, mountainous parts of Africa such as the ranges of Mt. Kilimanjaro, North America, and South America’s Andes ranges were covered by a vast ice sheet.
It was a time when humans hadn’t been settled in societies. Humans lived nomadic life and lived connected to their immediate tribes. The tribes would often move from place to place in search of food and find better living environments.
At the time of the last ice age, the homo sapien ancestors were in the process of a larger migration from the warm African heartland into northern European and Eurasian lands that were experiencing the harshest sinking temperatures.
One would think, why would they migrate to a place that would face an ice age?
Studies have found that the fluctuations of weather gave various opportunities to Homo sapiens to move out of the African continent and spread into other continents.
Survival is an art that only Homo sapien had in early history. That’s why they lived on compared to their cousins, Neanthertals, who couldn’t adapt to the changing circumstances.
Homo sapiens used various techniques, methods, sciences, and arts to live even in the harshest climates. Early humans used the four methods to survive the fatal ice age.
1. Use of language, Storytelling, and other methods of arts to survive
You would think how language and storytelling help one survive freezing weather?
Well, language is a medium of communication through which we spread knowledge as well. Storytelling and other art forms such as dancing and painting also helped spread education and survival ideas in early human history.
Brian Fagan, professor at the University of California, author of many books that deal with the anthropology of humans, including Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from our Ancestors, says,
“One of the most important things about Homo sapiens is that we had fluent speech plus the ability to conceptualize and plan ahead.”
With the development of language, they could share their ideas and knowledge about the natural world. They developed tools and methods through which they could survive and live better. They also shared their knowledge and technologies with their neighbors and passed them on to their generations through storytelling.
“They had institutional memory through symbolic storytelling, which gave them a relationship with the forces of the environment, the supernatural forces which governed their world.”
Dancing, painting, and other art forms also helped them spread their ideas to others. They transmitted information about changing seasons, animal migrations, edible plants, and the making of new tools via painting.
The cave paintings worldwide bear witness that early humans were adept at collecting, transmitting, and preserving their knowledge and culture. The painting at the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet in France shows how the early humans hunted the animals upon which they depended in the late ice age.
Fagan says,
“When wildlife biologists look at those paintings of reindeer and bison, they can tell you what time of year it was painted just from the appearance of the animals’ hides and skins. The way these people knew their environment was absolutely incredible by our standards.”
2. They Invented the Needle to Have Tailored Clothing
Early humans used rudimentary clothing to save themselves from the cold when they migrated to northern climates about 45000 years ago. They wrapped the losing clothes from themselves that provided them with the needed protection. They also used clothes to protect their hands while chiseling stones.
However, according to Fagan, the invention of needles around 30,000 years ago changed their ways of life. It was an important invention in history that helped humans in every age. Fagan says,
“If you saw a needle from 20,000 or 30,000 years ago, you’d know what it was in an instant, a very fine-pointed tool with a hole in one end to put the thread through. The miracle of the needle was that it enabled humans to make tight-fitting clothing tailored to the individual, and that’s vital.”
They didn’t just make ordinary clothes but tailored very special clothes that suited the cold weather. Their clothes were made up from the skins of arctic foxes, reindeer, hares, and ptarmigans birds. The clothes would contain three to four layers, and each layer had a special purpose. They made underwear to keep the moisture away from the skin, waterproof pants, and parkas.
They also made the thread from vegetable fibers and wild flax, and they even developed ways to dye the threads pink and turquoise. With time, they also developed skills to make various fitted clothes with different colors and suitable for keeping the wearer warm in freezing temperatures.
3. Early Humans Used Sophisticated Tools in Ice Age to Survive
Early humans rapidly developed various tools during the last ice age, between 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. They made advanced tools and weaponry. Some of the tools were used to make other tools, such as a burin tool. This tool was made up of a rock chisel to cut grooves into bones.
They also made ornamental things from bone and antler by notching them with a stone chisel. They also made harpoon tips and spearheads from bone and antler and used them for hunt. These weapons were detachable and durable, and one could interchange them with other tools to make them more useful in cooking and hunting.
Fagan comments on their mastery of weaponry as,
“Think of the Swiss army knife — it’s the same thing. The weaponry they made covered an extraordinary range of specialized tools, most of which were made from grooving antler and bone.”
4. Early Humans Made Solid Shelters From Rocks
Along with other life-saving tools and methods, the early humans also developed the structure of their houses and improved it a lot to provide safety from harsh weather.
They made their homes from solid rocks. They would cut a roomy depression into the walls and make a protective overhang that would stop the piercing wind into the home.
Fagan provides strong evidence that early humans made their shelter weatherproof by making tent-like wooden structures around a blazing hearth to keep themselves warm.
In the short summer months, when they would move out into the plains of the Atlantic coast of Europe, they would make dome-shaped huts partially dug into the earth to avoid the cold temperatures at night. Fagan says,
“The framework was built from a latticework of mammoth bones, either hunted or raided from carcasses. On top of it, they’d lay sod or animal hides to make a house that was occupied for months on end.”
What Do We Learn From the Survival Techniques of the Early Humans?
As modern humans (Homo sapiens) were good at adaptation and had more flexibility to survive in various climates, they spread out worldwide.
They have experienced harshed ice ages and hot and humid weather in the tropical lands but survived both climates. They not only lived in those varied environments but also developed various techniques, tools, and methods to live.
Today, we face global warming, where the temperature rises gradually until the earth may become uninhibited. However, some environmentalists and scientists still predict that humans will be able to survive global warming at a level, but still, many would perish.
What made the early humans survive the freezing ice age was cooperation and spreading technology and knowledge with each other.
Now that we have more speedy means for transmitting education and innovative capabilities, we should cooperate on every level to reverse the global warming trends, or else; we will lose a larger chunk of humanity to these environmental changes.
