From: Amadeus Schmidt
> I agree and can see that the ice age in northern areas (europe)
> presented such a bottleneck for the humans in this areas.

The Ice Age was not the bottleneck as it was the norm for the last two
million years, the entire span of existence of homo-sapiens (our type of
hominids).  The Ice age affected both northern and sourthern hemispheres,
producing steppe-tundra and Pleistocene megafauna in both.  It was the rapid
destruction of this habitat during the short interglacial periods (about
10,000 years each) that produced the bottlenecks that would produce the
future stock when the glaciers returned.  Common mutations found among
stressed populations would include gracile forms and neotinized forms of
Pleistocene megafauna.  Some of these are todays domestic animals.

Ray Audette
Author "NeanderThin"
http://www.neanderthin.com