Changes in natural conditions

Culture angelic type is replaced by a new culture, the Mousterian (Moustier – a cave on the banks of the Weser river, in France, where parking ancient people were found, the so-called Neanderthals, more advanced and had more advanced equipment than the most ancient people the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic including synanthropes 100 -40 thousand. years ago, sometimes isolated from the lower Paleolithic to the special “middle Paleolithic”. Mousterian culture is prevalent not only where the Acheulean man lived, but also in places where people did not go Chellean and Acheulian pores. Such wide distribution human Mousterian period, although he was now living in much less favorable conditions than its predecessors, it was possible because he was able to overcome the difficulties encountered due to the development of culture.

Highly monkey – coming human ancestors who lived in the late Tertiary and early Quaternary period, and primitive people like Sinanthropus and his immediate descendants everywhere existed in a relatively mild climate, in a rather favorable conditions for life. With the passage of time in the natural environment surrounding the primitive people, there are significant changes. Due to insufficient. More reasons, the effect of which somehow spans the globe and all continents, began a period of ice age, separated from each other breaks (interglacial periods). Clearer and better-designed alternation scheme glacial periods in the Alps, where it is in its clarity and fullness is a classic character. The history of glaciation of the Alps and adjacent parts of Europe is divided into stages gyuntssky, Mindel, Riss and Wurm. They are separated by interglacial periods, respectively named Günzach-Mindel, Mindel-Riss, Riss-Wurm. Wurm stage divided by Western researchers for another four stages. A number of scientists and outlines for the territory of the USSR three stages of glaciation: lihvinsky, Dnieper (the maximum), Valdai. The first of these corresponds to the general Mindel period alpine circuit, the second – Riss, the third – Wurm.

Mousterian human existence in Europe and in neighboring countries dates back to the maximum glaciation of these countries, to Riss, or Dnieper, stage of the Ice Age. To visualize the magnitude of these events and their significance for the history of Paleolithic man, it should be borne in mind that solid ice masses then stretched from the British Isles in the west and near to the Ob on the east. The ice cover reached in the European part of our country districts, where the city now Molotov and Kirov, then fell sharply to 50 ° C. m., which intersect at two points, going to the south-wide languages ​​ledges, reaching areas of the present city of Stalingrad and Dnepropetrovsk, and then retreated somewhat to the northwest. The area of ​​the ice sheet exceeded 9.5 million sq. M. km. Its thickness reached by calculations of geologists, 2 km.

Slow-moving ice thickness leveled hills; valleys plowed and destroyed every living thing in its path. Heat-loving vegetation of the past in the area immediately adjacent to the glaciers disappeared. Extinct or gone to the south, in a more favorable place for them, and the corresponding animals. They were replaced there is a new fauna. Instead of “the fauna of southern elephant” is widely spread new “mammoth fauna”, presented in addition to the mammoth woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, Arctic fox and other animals.

This process was long and uneven in its pace in various areas. Thermophilic fauna continued to exist for a long time in the south of Europe, in Italy and in those countries (e.g. in Africa), where during the Quaternary happened catastrophic changes in the climate. In the south, then it is time to rain and showers (pluvial period), when the present Sahara was covered with lakes, rivers and grassy plains, interspersed with thick groves of tropical trees.