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The Gravettian was an industry
Archaeological industry

An archaeological industry is the name given to a consistent range of Assemblage s connected with a single product , such as the Langdale axe industry....
 of the Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an Upper Palaeolithic. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne
Dordogne

Dordogne is a departments of France in central France named after the Dordogne River....
 region of France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
. It dates from between 28,000 and 22,000 years ago and succeeded the Aurignacian
Aurignacian

The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It dates to between 32,000 and 26,000 Before Christ....
.

The diagnostic artifact
Artifact (archaeology)

In archaeology, an artifact or artefact is any object made or modified by a human archaeological culture, and often one later recovered by some archaeological endeavor....
 of the industry is a small pointed restruck blade
Blade (archaeology)

In archaeology a blade is a type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow lithic flake from a stone lithic core.Blades are defined as being flakes that are at least twice as long as they are wide and that have parallel or subparallel sides and at least two ridges on the dorsal side....
 with a blunt but straight back, known as a Noailles burin
Burin

Burin from the French language burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably also used for engraving, or fo...
. Artistic achievements of the Gravettian cultural stage included the Venus figurines
Venus figurines

Venus figurines is an umbrella term for a number of prehistory statuettes of women sharing common attributes from the Aurignacian or Gravettian period of the upper Palaeolithic, found from Western Europe to Siberia....
. The industry had counterparts across central Europe and into Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
.

ase (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
Bison

Bison is a taxonomic group containing six species of large even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Only two of these species still exist: the American bison and the European bison, or wisent , each with two subspecies....
, horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
, reindeer
Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer, widespread and numerous across the northern Holarctic....
 and mammoth
Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of the Elephantidae and close relatives of modern elephants....
).






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The Gravettian was an industry
Archaeological industry

An archaeological industry is the name given to a consistent range of Assemblage s connected with a single product , such as the Langdale axe industry....
 of the Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an Upper Palaeolithic. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne
Dordogne

Dordogne is a departments of France in central France named after the Dordogne River....
 region of France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
. It dates from between 28,000 and 22,000 years ago and succeeded the Aurignacian
Aurignacian

The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It dates to between 32,000 and 26,000 Before Christ....
.

The diagnostic artifact
Artifact (archaeology)

In archaeology, an artifact or artefact is any object made or modified by a human archaeological culture, and often one later recovered by some archaeological endeavor....
 of the industry is a small pointed restruck blade
Blade (archaeology)

In archaeology a blade is a type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow lithic flake from a stone lithic core.Blades are defined as being flakes that are at least twice as long as they are wide and that have parallel or subparallel sides and at least two ridges on the dorsal side....
 with a blunt but straight back, known as a Noailles burin
Burin

Burin from the French language burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably also used for engraving, or fo...
. Artistic achievements of the Gravettian cultural stage included the Venus figurines
Venus figurines

Venus figurines is an umbrella term for a number of prehistory statuettes of women sharing common attributes from the Aurignacian or Gravettian period of the upper Palaeolithic, found from Western Europe to Siberia....
. The industry had counterparts across central Europe and into Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
.

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
Bison

Bison is a taxonomic group containing six species of large even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Only two of these species still exist: the American bison and the European bison, or wisent , each with two subspecies....
, horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
, reindeer
Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer, widespread and numerous across the northern Holarctic....
 and mammoth
Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of the Elephantidae and close relatives of modern elephants....
). 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
Mammoth

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of the Elephantidae and close relatives of modern elephants....
 hunters on the plains of central Europe and Russia.

External links

  • , 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
    Upper Paleolithic

    The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 9th millennium BC years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of "high" culture and before the advent of agriculture....
  • Perigordian
    Périgordian

    P?rigordian is a term for several distinct but related Upper Palaeolithic archaeological culture which are thought by some archaeologists to represent a contiguous tradition....
  • Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
    Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

    The synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures gives a rough picture of the relationships between the various principal Archaeological culture of Prehistory outside the Americas, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania....
  • Solutrean
    Solutrean

    The Solutrean archaeological industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Palaeolithic.It is named after the type-site of Solutr? in the M?con district, Sa?ne-et-Loire, eastern France, and appeared around 19,000 BCE....
  • Venus figurines
    Venus figurines

    Venus figurines is an umbrella term for a number of prehistory statuettes of women sharing common attributes from the Aurignacian or Gravettian period of the upper Palaeolithic, found from Western Europe to Siberia....