Who were the Cro-Magnons?

   Some 40.000 years ago—just about the time Neanderthal people disappeared—a new kind of people moved into Europe, perhaps from Africa or Asia. They were better equipped to survive than were Neanderthal people, for they were stronger and more intelligent and made better tools and weapons.
   This new kind of human is called Cro-Magnon "man," from the name of a cave in southern France where remains were found. But the France of 40,000 years ago was very different from the France of today. It was quite cold. The polar icecap of the fourth period of the Ice Age extended far south into Europe. We know Europe was cold because with the Cro-Magnon bones were found the remains of plants and animals that live only in a cold climate.
   We know much more about Cro-Magnon peo­ple than we do about any of the other early humans. For one thing, more of their remains have been found. Then, too, these people themselves "told" us more. They could not write, but they could draw and paint. Cro-Magnon people were probably the first real artists. In the caves of southern France and Spain where Cro-Magnon people lived, the walls are covered with their paintings of the animals they hunted. Among the animals they painted were the woolly mammoth and the reindeer. These paintings are full of life and movement. The Cro-Magnons also made small clay and limestone statues of animals and carved figures on bones and antlers.
   Cro-Magnon people looked almost the same as modern men and women. They lived on earth for many thousands of years. By the end of the Old Stone Age, however, the Cro-Magnon as a distinct type no longer existed. In appearance, peo­ple had become as they are today.

Cro-magnon man