Venus figurines have been discovered throughout much of Eurasia, most dating between 11,000 to 40,000 BCE*. These saucy ladies have been the subject of much study and conjecture. Were they fertility symbols? Some sort of Mother Earth/Mother Nature goddesses? Or were they merely meant to depict womanhood in full flower (so to speak); a visual testimony to the artist’s admiration for the female form in all her glory? We can only guess, but it is fun to speculate on the motive(s) and mindset(s) of their creators.
Eurasian Cave Lion (Illustration credit: Dreamer Books: An Ice Age Saga, by E. A. Meigs)
The Eurasian Cave Lion(Panthera spelaea) is known to us mostly through its fossilized skeletal remains and the exquisitely detailed imagery left behind by early humans on cave walls. The fossils tell a tale of a large predator, somewhat bigger than today’s African lions. They may have been as much as 11 and a half feet in length from their nose to the tip of their tail, and reached weights of up to 880 pounds. Male cave lions are depicted without manes in cave art. Some of the ancient paintings seem to show faint striping on parts of the cave lion’s body.
These impressive animals are included in several of the Dreamer Book Series: An Ice Age Saga novels; as they surely would have been well known to Ice Age humans and been a source of awe and -at least occasionally- terror, to those who encountered them. This versatile and fearsome hunter was known to inhabit most of Eurasia and the very northwestern parts of the North American continent.
In 2015 two cave lion cubs were discovered where they had been buried in a landslide in Siberia, and were preserved in permafrost for tens of thousands of years. The approximately two week old kittens were were an astounding find and have done much to contribute to our understanding of these animals. A well-preserved third cub, about six to eight weeks old at time of death, was also found in permafrost in 2017. Lastly, a fourth cub was located in 2018. It was found near the 2017 cub; close enough to make scientists think that it might have been a sibling. There is speculation that future digs might reveal the existence of more siblings, or possibly even the remains of the cubs’ mother.
The most recent Eurasian cave lion remains have been dated to about 14,000 years *BCE. They are believed to have gone extinct by 10,000 years *BCE.
The Woolly mammoth was a large animal that lived in Eurasia and North America. It was similar in size to today’s African elephants, but with considerably longer tusks, a shorter tail, and much smaller ears. The bulls could be up to 11 feet high at the withers and weigh over 12,000 pounds. Cows were somewhat smaller, but still impressive in size at up to 9 1/2 feet at the withers and weights of up to 9000 pounds. Their furry hides came in a wide range of colors from blond to brown. Individual strands of the outer guard hairs could be as much as 42″ long.
Most mammoths are believed to have gone extinct near the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 10,000 ago, but some are thought to have eked out an existence on Wrangle Island until about 4000 years ago.
The Dreamer is a series of novels that follows the life of a young Neanderthal man, Tris (the Dreamer), his father Tor, and their Cro-Magnon friend and neighbor, Black Wolf. At the time of the Earth’s last Great Glacial Period, Europe was inhabited by at least two peoples: the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon. Although this primitive world was filled with a harsh and stunning beauty, it was also a brutally difficult period in mankind’s history. Humans struggled to survive against the dangers posed by an inhospitable climate and their perilous position within nature’s food chain. As the story unfolds, Tris’s dreams figure prominently, but it is really an ongoing adventure that revolves around family, friendship, love, social conflict and endurance against the odds.
A new Dreamer book will be released each fall until the saga has reached its conclusion. At this writing, a minimum of six books are planned, but there will likely be many more.
The Dreamer: Just before dawn on a cold spring morning, a young Neanderthal man awakens from a strange and frightening dream that will change his life forever…
