How We Survived the Ice Age

21,000 years ago, at the coldest moment of the last Ice Age, Europe had lost more than half its people. And right then, someone walked into North America, where no human had ever stood. How did people survive the Last Glacial Maximum? We follow the clues they left and pin each one to a map of the frozen world: an eyed bone needle from Denisova Cave, fires fed with bones at Abri Pataud, a sandstone lamp from Lascaux, hands with missing fingers at Gargas, a ring built from the bones of 64 mammoths at Kostenki, a mammoth's 1,000-km walk read from her tusk, a sick puppy someone nursed at Oberkassel, 3,000 ivory beads at Sunghir, the Venus of Willendorf and her stone from across the Alps, dots that may be the oldest calendar, skull cups from Gough's Cave, and footprints at White Sands made between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago. By the end, the map is full, and the answer to how they made it through turns out to be the cold itself. Some of these clues are still argued over, among them the dot "calendar" and the meaning of the Gargas hands. We say where the evidence is strong and where it isn't. ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 The coldest moment 00:20 The world at the Last Glacial Maximum 01:18 Needles with an eye, and the first underwear? 02:37 Fire on a treeless steppe: burning bones 03:30 Into the dark: torch, lamp and fire 04:53 The hands with missing fingers 06:03 Mammoth-bone huts and a mystery ring 07:19 Did they kill 64 mammoths? 08:48 From wolf to dog: the puppy someone saved 10:08 A fortune in beads, and a stone from over the Alps 11:35 A calendar in the dots? 12:47 Gargas decoded: frostbite or hand signs? 13:25 Skull cups of Gough's Cave 14:40 Footprints at the bottom of the cold 15:50 Beringia: the land that vanished 17:06 Everything on one map 17:33 They used the cold 💬 What surprised you most: the bone fires, the puppy, or the footprints? Tell us in the comments. 🔔 Next: every human species that ever shared the planet with us. Subscribe to see that map fill up. 📚 Sources & credits: https://telegra.ph/How-We-Survived-th... #IceAge #Prehistory #HumanEvolution