Ice Age Europeans found refuge in Spain, doom in Italy

By FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — New research reveals that the hunter-gatherer people who dominated Europe 30,000 years ago sought refuge from the last Ice Age in warmer climes, but only those who sheltered in the southwest of the continent appear to have survived. Using new genetic analysis of prehistoric human remains, scientists were able to trace the fate of the Gravettian people who once roamed Europe and produced distinctive ‘Venus’ figurines found across the continent. The study, published Wednesday in Nature, highlights the impact that climate change and migration had on the early inhabitants of Europe. It suggests that those who lived in what is now Italy when the ice expanded southward some 25,000 years ago found themselves in a dead end compared to their cousins who lived in Spain.