There are several interesting things about the “Franco-Cantabrian” cave art. It was done deep down in the darkest and most dangerous parts of the caves, although the men lived only in the openings of caves. If you think what they must have had for lights--crude lamps of hollowed stone have been found, which must have burned some kind of oil or grease, with a matted hair or fiber wick--and of the animals that may have lurked in the caves, you’ll understand the part about danger. Then, too, we’re sure the pictures these people painted were not simply to be looked at and admired, for they painted one picture right over other pictures which had been done earlier. Clearly, it was the _act_ of _painting_ that counted. The painter had to go way down into the most mysterious depths of the earth and create an animal in paint. Possibly he believed that by doing this he gained some sort of magic power over the same kind of animal when he hunted it in the open air. It certainly doesn’t look as if he cared very much about the picture he painted--as a finished product to be admired--for he or somebody else soon went down and painted another animal right over the one he had done. The cave art of the Franco-Cantabrian style is one of the great artistic achievements of all time. The subjects drawn are almost always the larger animals of the time: the bison, wild cattle and horses, the wooly rhinoceros, the mammoth, the wild boar, and the bear. In some of the best examples, the beasts are drawn in full color and the paintings are remarkably alive and charged with energy. They come from the hands of men who knew the great animals well--knew the feel of their fur, the tremendous drive of their muscles, and the danger one faced when he hunted them. Another artistic style has been found in eastern Spain. It includes lively drawings, often of people hunting with bow and arrow. The East Spanish art is found on open rock faces and in rock-shelters. It is less spectacular and apparently more recent than the Franco-Cantabrian cave art. LIFE AT THE END OF THE ICE AGE IN EUROPE