Paleolithic cave paintings depict caribou as far south as Spain
30,000-10,000 BCE • Europe
Paintings of caribou found in caves throughout Europe, including in Chauvet, France and Cantabria, Spain, reveal the caribou's once wide distribution. “During the last Ice Age, at the end of the Pleistocene period, reindeer were much more widely distributed . . . they extended from Britain southwards as far as Spain. As the climate warmed up . . . the species retreated north, and its numbers greatly declined, probably as a result of human exploitation as much as of climatic change.”
Glutton-Brock, Juliet, and Arthur MacGregort.,“An End to Medieval Reindeer in Scotland,” The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 118 (1988): 23-25.
Image: “Two Reindeer” Font-de-Gaume, France
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