© Peter Watson 2017 Russia/Mongolia, most of which are between 30o and 40o north. The cold climate of this vast area meant that it was dominated for thousands of years – for hundreds of thousands of years – by what came to be called the Pleistocene Megafauna, mainly very large animals, mammals, such as the straight-tusked elephant, woolly mammoth, cave lion, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, bison, auroch, wild horse, cave bear and reindeer. With the exception of the last, these animals, besides being very large, were wild, untameable and dangerous. Owing to the changing climate with the retreat of the ice, this steppe landscape changed after 14,500 BC to one of mossy forests, tundra, lakes and wetlands. At the same time that these changes were taking place, ancient humans first arrived on the mammoth steppe, sometime between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. This combination of climate change and the arrival of humans, who hunted the Megafauna, meant that the Megafauna gradually disappeared, going extinct in what became known as the ‘Quaternary Extinction Event.’ With the great Pleistocene animals – many of them carnivorous – on the way out, the way was clear for the proliferation of reindeer and smaller animals – sheep and goats in particular, while horses and cattle could evolve into smaller species in the new, more hospitable environments. These smaller variations would prove in time more amenable to domestication. There is some evidence that the brains of humanity underwent a significant genetic mutation, around 40,000 – 37,000 years ago, which led to what certain palaeontologists have called a ‘creative explosion’. Others argue that there was no explosion, rather that humanity’s cultural abilities developed gradually, but reached a very visible peak with cave art. But no one disputes that cave art flourished around 35,000-30,000 years ago and that it provides us with unparalleled evidence for what life was like then. There are three defining features of cave art, which are important for the argument. One, it is produced predominantly in caves or rock shelters. Two, it consists mainly of paintings of wild – and mostly dangerous – animals: bulls, rhinoceros, mammoths, bison, auroch, wild horses, stags and oxen. Three, the paintings are beautifully rendered, well-observed, often multi- coloured, and reinforced in some cases by pictures of humans attacking – or at least throwing spears in the direction of – the creatures. There are also many hand-stencils on the cave walls, apparently created by blowing pigment through a bone tube while the painter’s fingers are splayed against the rock. In some cases drawings are made using natural features in the rock that