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| Quaternary Period (disputed) |
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(disputed) Pliocene / Pleistocene
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The Gravettian was an industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France. It dates from between 28,000 and 22,000 years ago and succeeded the Aurignacian.
The diagnostic artifact of the industry is a small pointed restruck blade with a blunt but straight back, known as a Noailles burin. Artistic achievements of the Gravettian cultural stage included the Venus figurines. The industry had counterparts across central Europe and into Russia.
Gravettian culture
A phase (c.28,000–23,000 ya) of the European Upper Paleolithic that is characterized by a stone-tool industry with small pointed blades used for big-game hunting (bison, horse, reindeer and mammoth). People in the Gravettian period also used nets to hunt small game. For more information on hunting see Animal Usage in the Gravettian.It is divided into two regional groups: the western Gravettian, mostly known from cave sites in France, and the eastern Gravettian, with open sites of specialized mammoth hunters on the plains of central Europe and Russia.
External links
- Cave sites in France
- Picture Gallery of the Paleolithic (reconstructional palaeoethnology), Libor Balák at the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Archaeology in Brno, The Center for Paleolithic and Paleoethnological Research
See also
- Animal Usage in the Gravettian
- Upper Paleolithic
- Perigordian
- Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
- Solutrean
- Venus figurines
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 23 November 2008, at 18:00.
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