Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans
** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall **
About this lecture:
March 29, 2012, at the Linda Hall Library
Brian M. Fagan, Best-selling author and Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Brian Fagan takes us on a journey into the late Ice Age world of the Cro-Magnons, the first full modern Europeans, who arrived in their homeland before 40,000 years ago. Who were these people? Where did they originate? And what made them different from earlier, more archaic human beings who lived alongside them? Professor Fagan explores the complex and still mysterious relationship between the incoming Cro-Magnons and their Neanderthal neighbors, who became extinct about 30,000 years ago. Was it climate change, brain power, superior technology, or sheer overwhelming numbers that marginalized the Neanderthals? The lecture ends with a brief look at the remarkable cave art of the late Ice Age, the earliest known artistic tradition in the world.
