Woolly mammoths ranged across the continent, their tracks and bones a regular feature of the environment.

Woolly rhinoceroses, cave bears, cave lions, spotted hyenas, aurochs, bison, horses, reindeer, giant deer (Megaloceros) with antlers spanning three meters — these animals constituted both the ecological community that shaped the land and the prey and competitors that shaped human lives.

The modern human groups that inhabited Europe at this time were hunter-gatherers, highly mobile, living in relatively small social groups of perhaps twenty to fifty individuals who maintained networks of relationship and exchange across a landscape measured in hundreds of kilometers.

They exploited a wide range of resources: large game animals hunted with spears and possibly projectile weaponry, small game and birds, fish in river systems, plant foods gathered seasonally.