At the time the cave paintings were done part of the Iberrian Pensula was a steppe-tundra enviroment.  This
enviroment was totally different than any other enviroment today.  It was inhabited by large numbers of
Pleistocene animals such as mammoths, wooly rhinos, giant sloths etc..  The vegetation consisted mostly of
shrubs and grasses with few trees because of the effects of permafrost on their roots.

In spite of the fact that this period was the coldest part of the last ice-age, this steppe tundra was very
productive.  The abundant precipitation produced a grassland that supported very large populations of very
large animals.  These animals possesed huge fat stores to get them through the brutal winters of deep snow and
artic tempertures.

At the time of the cave paintings, man had begun to hunt these animals with dogs (as evidenced by his hunting
tools) and art and religion artifacts appeared for the first time.  Because of the advantages of a partnership
with dogs, man could hunt larger animals that would be very difficult for a pack of men (or wolves) alone to
hunt.

This man/dog "super-preditor" may have contributed to the pleistocene extintions that began at this time and
continued until just before the Neolithic revolution.  The resulting loss of game species may have been a
contributing factor in Man's becoming dependent on crop species when the current inter-glacial period altered
the steppe-tundra into the dry grasslands and forests of today.  Perhaps the only remnants of these pleistocene
animals are the horses, camels, pigs, sheep, goats etc. that followed men and dogs into domestication.  This
covenant (perhaps stored in an ark) with another species allowed all to survive when left "high and dry" by the
end of the Pleistocene.

Ray Audette
Author "NeanderThin"