Building a setting with Ice Age and Celtic Myth

[Dangerious P. Cats]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Women's status may well have decreased -- the changeover from nomadism to settled villages, often precipitated by agriculture, certainly increased social inequality in general -- but the depiction of an outright matriarchal past (vaguely mentioned by the OP) isn't realistic.

The entire idea that most humans were matriarchal before something happened to change the whole species is a pseudoscientific crock leftover from the Victorian-era notion of human "cultural evolution." I've never heard of actual archaeological or other scientific evidence that this was actually true of humans. It's perfectly fine for fiction, of course, but it shouldn't be taken seriously as something that happened in the real world.

The theory I read, and consiquently based the setting around, was that when agriculture first occured in Northern Europe it was generally women's work. Agriculutre had grown (pun so totally intended) out of hunter gathering with the gathering being done by women. As agriculture became more important as a food source women became more powerful within society, and religion came to reflect this. This is supposedly the time when the Venus figures occured, supposing a pantheon lead by a mother goddess.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Any individual animals, or whole ecosystems? Because I tend to think most extinct animals could be cool.

So here are Europe and North America in the late Pleistocene. If I don't give the species name, assume there are multiple species. I've included some small animals (like rodents and mustelids), especially the extinct island species, but I haven't bothered to list every living species of small vertebrate. For North America I don't have all of the ground sloths, pronghorns, deer, large birds, marine mammals, or armadillos, but this is a start.


[Snip]

Wow, that's left no shortage of choice. I'm not even sure where to begin. How about you tell me about you favorite European animals from the list or some that you think a role playing party would encounter. Or Mammoths, since they are domesticated.

Actually come to think of it which Ice Age creatures do you think could be domesticated?