Life in the Ice Ages

During long periods of Earth’s history, large areas of land were covered by ice. As temperatures fell, sheets of ice up to 200 metres thick spread across land and sea. The last of these ice ages had a dramatic effect on human and animal life.

The earliest Ice Age occurred some 2.3 billion years ago. Geological evidence shows that succeeding Ice Ages lasted between 20 and 50 million years. As the climate cooled, glaciers formed at the North and South poles. The ice advanced and retreated in waves, known as glaciations.

The most recent Ice Age entered its coldest period about 22,000 years ago, when ice sheets covered much of North America and northern Europe and Asia. As the seas froze, the sea level fell by over 100 metres in places, exposing ‘bridges’ of land between land masses. The Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska, for example, became dry land, allowing animals, such as mammoths, to move between Asia and North America.

Chasing after these animals came human hunters – the first humans to colonize North America. Camels, deer and horses moved from the Americans into Asia. When the climate warmed, the ice melted, sea levels rose, and this and other land bridges disappeared.

Conditions were extremely harsh for the people who lived near the ice sheets. Wolly mammoths were a valuable source of meat, skin (for clothes) and bones (foe weapons and carvings). Men hunted in groups, driving the mammoths up against cliff-faces so that they could close in for the kill. They attacked with sharp spears made of flint and wood, and large stones. One mammoth provided enough meat to last many months. Leftovers were stored in holes dug in the frozen ground. Bones and tusks made a framework for huts, covered with hides and turf.

HOW ANIMALS ADAPTED

This baby mammoth was found, perfectly preserved, in the frozen ground of Siberia, Russia. Animals had to adapt to survive the Ice Age. Over time, some animals, such as the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, grew larger, because a larger conserves heat better. 

Men hunted mammoths in groups. They would either corner one of the huge beasts against a cliff-face or trap it in a pit dug across its migration route. Then they killed it with spears and stones, and removed the skin, tusks and meat.