Living in the stone age wouldn’t have exactly been fun or easy, with every single task you do having to be done from the bare minimum using tools made of flint and rocks, but one of the advantages to living in these harsh times would be some of the rewards gained from hunting.
The stone age ran from around 2.5 million B.C.E to between 9000 and 6000 B.C.E depending on where you are in the world, and with even today’s generations witnessing various species going extinct the chances of there being certain animals alive back then that died thousands of years before people started to record history is guaranteed.
Fortunately through excavations around the world we have rediscovered most of these amazing creatures and it shows some of the things that our ancestors would have eaten that died out long before we got here.
The Megaloceros
Also known as the Irish Elk, this giant deer was common across most of Europe and especially Ireland. It lived the exact same way that modern deer do but died out around 11,700 years ago apparently due to the ending of the ice age. There were various species of this type of giant deer but the Megaloceros was the most common and was the last of the species to die out.
The Woolly Rhino
The idea of a rhino living in the wild in the British countryside is something that seems like it would be impossible, but one thing most people forget when talking about the stone age is that it ran right through the ice age, with some of the daily winter temperatures close to that of northern Siberia. The Woolly rhino died out again due to climate change as its very think skin and shaggy fur coat saw it overheat when the atmosphere began to heat up.
The Mammoth
No stone age animal list would be complete without mentioning the mammoth. Basically a giant elephant covered in a thick shaggy fur coat, they are almost the poster animal of the stone age. This is another one lost due to rising temperatures but has been found more than any other animal during excavations across Europe.
Cave Lion
One of the more dangerous wild animals during the stone age. All though they weren’t the biggest or strongest, they were stealthy and used surprise attacks when they could. Its thought a cave lion would normally attack in the same way as south American jungle cats, which is jumping on the back of its prey from above and biting the back of the neck to crush the spinal column.
Cave Bear
Bigger than a grizzly in terms of size and strength, the cave bear is one of the most dangerous animals to fight head on during the stone age. Often standing over 10 feet tall when on their back legs and strong enough to slap a persons spine in half, the cave bear is thought to have died out due to over hunting combined with dwindling populations from climate change. Fortunately the people living in those times found the cave bear ate mostly plants and didn’t actively seek meat, so perhaps the over hunting was mostly due to fear or status symbols.
Various other animals that existed in the stone age are still around today, thought the country of origin has change with many of them. Here’s a short list of some of the animals that have survived from the stone age:
Wolf, Bear, Hyena, Hippo, Wild Boar, sloth, crocodile, lion, horse, donkey, dogs and a large selection of birds and smaller animals.