After the ice had reached its Rissian maximum of glaciation the climate improved somewhat. The ice-edge retreated, leaving Denmark and the German coast, and vacating the Baltic basin, but not disappearing altogether from Scandinavia. At Rixdorf, near Berlin, there is a bed of gravel deposited in this “interglacial,” containing numerous and well-preserved bones of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, aurochs, bison, horse, reindeer, red deer and other species of _Cervus_, musk ox and wolf—a cold temperate to sub-arctic fauna. In south Germany fresh-water mollusca indicate that the summers in that district were almost as warm as at present, but the winters were probably severe. As described in the preceding chapter this “interglacial” was the time of loess formation _par excellence_, with a continental climate and steppe conditions over much of central Europe. Investigations at Skærumhede in Denmark show that this recession of the ice was accompanied by, and presumably due to, a fall in the level of the land relatively to that of the sea, for at the beginning of the oscillation the land lay about 350 feet above its present level, sinking gradually to only 30 feet above present. Even at its best during this interglacial the climate was almost sub-arctic in Denmark. In northern Finland, on the eastern edge of the ice-sheet, there was also an “interglacial,” with a slight improvement in the climate accompanying a temporary submergence. But in Scandinavia there are no traces of any interglacial deposits of this period, and considering the cold climates which prevailed in Denmark and North Germany, it seems probable that Scandinavia continued to be glaciated during the whole period. The mode of life among Mousterian men, who lived during this “interglacial,” also points to a severe climate. For at this time man did not live in the open, but in caves and rock-shelters, and the practice of wearing the fur skins of animals as a protection against the cold, begun in the preceding Rissian glacial period, was not discontinued.