Reindeer fur would have helped ancient humans endure the climate of the last glacial maximum
Esteban De Armas/Shutterstock
An open-air site in Austria occupied by humans during the coldest part of the last glacial period may have been dedicated to hunting reindeer for pelts, showing how people adapted to extreme temperatures in Europe.
The site, called Kammern-Grubgraben, was heavily occupied from around 24,000 to 20,000 years ago and contains the largest abundance of tools, ornaments, artefacts and stone structures in Europe during the cold and unforgiving most recent glacial maximum. At this time, the mean annual temperature…