Ice Age Mammals

Wooly Mammoths, Mastodons, Giant Armadillo, Saber Tooth Cats, European Cave Bears! The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is not just a mind blower for dinosaurs and existing mammal exhibits. It's a fossil graveyard for all those great Ice Age mammals who walked the frozen wilderness of North America, Europe and northern Asia. How can you not love 'em. They're wooly, they're mammoth, they're giant kitties with humongous fangs. The fossils of the European Cave bear (far bottom four photos) might be most intriguing. It was in the foot hills of Europe, where they fought a relentless 50,000 year battle against Cro-Magnon man's genocidal war to determine who would inhabit the life-saving caves. The Cave Bear was huge, but it was primarily a vegetarian. It was fierce, but it was the only bear that formed clans, living year round in caves. It was smart, with groups of them waging pitched battles against the the ever-growing hoards of well armed human invaders. According to the existing fossil record, the final conflict took place in the mountains of Yugoslavia between large numbers of Cave Bear and larger numbers of heavily armed man. All of these magnificent creations have become memories in time... disappearing about 10,000 years ago, with the spread of man and the end of the Ice Age. What a pity.

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