© NHM Vienna, C. Potter
For Ice Age people, caves were special, enchanted places. They travelled deep inside with torches and decorated the walls with beautiful paintings. Rituals probably also took place there. Children also went exploring caves alone or with adults. Small hand and footprints prove this. They painted their own works of art and even organized mud fights. However, the idea that Ice Age people lived in caves is only partly true – if they did, they stayed in the entrance area.
Cave bears
Cave bears lived during the last Ice Age and disappeared 24,000 years ago. They were herbivores. Like many bears today, they hibernated in caves during winter. Their cubs were also born in caves. Many cave bears did not survive the winter. Their bones can still be found in caves today.
Cave lions
During the Ice Age there were cave lions in Europe. Their appearance resembled that of today’s African lions, but they were slightly larger. Despite their name they did not spend all their time in caves. As carnivores, they would venture out into the mammoth steppe and the Ice Age forests of Southern Europe, where they found plenty of prey.
Ice Age art
Ice Age people would often make animal figurines – and, albeit more rarely, human figurines – from clay, bone, ivory, or stone. The famous Venus of Willendorf, for example, is 29,500 years old and was made of oolitic limestone.
During the last Ice Age, people in France and Spain painted the walls and ceilings of large caves. Their works of art mainly depicted the animals they hunted, but circles, rectangles, spirals, and human handprints have also been preserved.
