Cro-Magnon

Cro-Magnons were the first fully modern Europeans-not only the creators of the stunning cave paintings at Lascaux and elsewhere, but the most adaptable and technologically inventive people that had yet lived on earth. The prolonged encounter between the Cro-Magnons and the archaic Neanderthals and between 45,000 and 30,000 years ago was one of the defining moments of history. The Neanderthals survived for some 15,000 years in the face of the newcomers, but were finally pushed aside by the Cro-Magnons' vastly superior intellectual abilities and cutting-edge technologies, which allowed them to thrive in the intensely challenging climate of the Ice Age.What do we know about this remarkable takeover? Who were the first modern Europeans and what were they like? How did they manage to thrive in such an extreme environment? And what legacy did they leave behind them after the cold millennia? The age of the Cro-Magnons lasted some 30,000 years-longer than all of recorded history. Cro-Magnon is the story of a little known, yet seminal, chapter of human experience.

Brian Fagan is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, Little History of Archaeology, Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850, The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels, The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization and Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans.