THE AURIGNACIAN IN EUROPE The first wide spread European culture of modern man, also known as Homo sapiens sapiens or Cro-Magnon man, is the »Aurignacian «. At a time of around 35,000 years ago hunters and gatherers were creating what is considered to be the oldest art known to mankind. When one encounters traces of our earliest ancestors in Europe, they are mostly in the form of tools or hunting artifacts made from animal bones, flint, or other such resistant materials. Bones from hunted animals are seldom found, and the discovery of human remains is an extremely rare occasion. The discovery of ice age artworks anywhere is also a very seldom occurrence. Thus, the finds made on the Swabian Alb and in the French Pyrenees have been acknowledged as a true world sensation.