Prehistoric men using wooden clubs and stone axe to fend off an attacks by a large cave bear. The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) was a species of bear that lived in Europe during the Pleistocene and became extinct at the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 27,500 years ago. Mammoths can be seen in the background. A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, proboscideans commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,500 years ago in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. Image taken from page 81 of "Primitive Man" by Louis Figuier. Revised translation from the French by Edward Burnet Tylor. Illustrated with scenes of primitive life, 1870.