From the ecology point of view, the interglacial periods are short anomalies only. Whereas the ice ages lasted tens of thousands of years, interglacial periods were very short – just a few thousand years. It happened that the human civilization taking advantages of heat, favourable natural conditions, as well as successful planting of trees occurred in one of such anomalies.
However, the prevailing picture of nature is a cold steppe dried by the winds blowing from the glacier in the north of Europe. Austrian wormwood preferred conditions just like that. It has been preserved until these days thanks to big herbivores.
The countryside was maintained woodless by aurochses, bisons, and wild horses. They were grazing the land constantly and the growth of trees was thus suppressed, and biodiversity, flowering plants, and insects were stimulated.
Megafauna became extinct, but domesticated animals grazed by humans in the places where the wild herds had been grazed before continued their activity. It is very probable that, in the broader neighbourhood, Devín was one of the first places where humans started to breed their animals.
Text author: Andrej Barát