QUATERNARY Life in the Ground Quartar Prehistoric Life Silver Coin 20€ Euro Austria 2015

Beginning 2.6 million ago, the Quaternary has been a period of extreme fluctuations in temperature. During the glaciations typical of the period, up to 30 per cent of the Earth's surface was covered with ice and snow, but mammals such as the hippopotamus and woolly rhinoceros could be found in Europe during warm periods. Mammoths thrived during cold periods until they died out at the end of the last Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago. Both sides of the coin feature these large woolly mammals. A mammoth in profile dominates the background of the coin's obverse, which also shows the skull and tusks of a mammoth next to the timeline linking the whole series. An Ice Age hunting scene shows Homo sapiens brandishing flaming torches and spears as they attack the giant beast on the coin's reverse.