10.1 Introduction

The first people to identify Europe as a separate entity were the Ancient Greeks. The region now considered to be Europe is broadly bounded by the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, the Ural Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, so it overlaps the boundaries of other regions, for example, “the Mediterranean Region”.

Map of Europe

The landscape in Europe was split into smaller areas by natural barriers such as rivers and mountains, which allowed groups of people to establish their security and identity. However there were always some links with their origins in West Asia and Africa to support trade, also encouraging cultural contact.

During the last glacial period, south of the ice sheets, the climate and therefore the vegetation changed considerably. Sometimes these changes were over periods of thousands of years but other times it could be much more rapid, perhaps over only a few generations. In those parts of North and West Europe that were not covered with ice, herds of horses, bison, reindeer and the precursor to cattle roamed, while in the northeast there were woolly mammoth and rhinoceros. In the Seine valley around 14,000 BC, hunters followed migrating herds of reindeer, camping from mid-summer to mid-winter using animal skin tents.

At the end of the last glacial period (around 11,500 BC), sea levels started to rise as the ice melted and the glaciers retreated. Around 7,000 BC this cut off Britain and Scandinavia from the Continent and much of the Balkans from Turkey. The climate and soils of Mediterranean Europe became gradually more arid. As it became warmer, forests started to move north replacing the tundra, and by 7,000 BC forests covered most of Central Europe. Mammoths, woolly rhinoceros and mastodons had disappeared, but bison and reindeer survived. The huge herds of reindeer, which were the main food source for some nomadic hunters, also moved north to remain in their preferred habitat, removing this rich food source from those people who remained in the south. This reduction in the availability of large food animals and the switch to smaller animals and agriculture was difficult initially and there was a drop in the age of death of the people affected.

As the climate improved, the people who had moved south and taken refuge in the warmer Iberian Peninsular had since returned northwards through France and some spread into Britain. Trees had to re-colonise Britain after its ice covering and vast “Caledonian” forests covered the whole country, but only for a relatively short period before they retreated before the warming climate to Scotland. In coastal areas people came to rely heavily on fish and shellfish, so much so that the large mounds of shells from this period probably indicate semi-permanent occupation. Inland, people were still hunter/gatherers, but now living in temperate deciduous woodlands rich with food provided by species of deer, elk, wild cattle and boar, along with birds, berries, fruit and nuts. This encouraged them to become more settled, but still probably not permanently so. Traces of a large circular building dated to 7,600 BC have been found in Howick, Northumberland, which would have been used by a large family including their animal stock. Some of these buildings were 40m diameter. In more temperate regions, houses were smaller and made from wood/wattle and daub, while in Greece, Sicily and the Iberian Peninsular they would have been mud brick on a stone base. At around 7,000 BC the human population in Europe was probably about 500,000, and in Britain only 10,000. Across Europe people still lived in quite isolated groups of perhaps 50 people as an extended family, and some would still be living in caves, brushwood huts and animal hide tents. Tribal communities might have been several hundred people, and occasional contact would have been made for kinship, marriage (for genetic diversity) and some trading. Dogs became hunting partners and forests were burned to produce grazing areas for early animal domestication.