The Magdalenian (also Madelenian; ) is a technocomplex of the Late Upper Paleolithic in parts of Western and Central Europe. It dates from around 21,000 to 13,000 years Before Present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a rock shelter () located in the Vézère valley of Tursac in Dordogne, France.

Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy originally termed the period L'âge du renne "the age of the reindeer". They conducted the first archaeological excavation of the type site, publishing in 1875. The Magdalenian is associated with reindeer hunters. Magdalenian sites contain extensive evidence for the hunting of red deer, wild horses, and other megafauna present in Europe toward the end of the Last Glacial Period. The culture was geographically widespread, and later Magdalenian sites stretched from Portugal in the west to Poland in the east, and as far north as France, the Channel Islands, England, and Wales. Besides la Madeleine, the chief stations of the Magdalenian are Les Eyzies, Laugerie-Basse, and Gorges d'Enfer in the Dordogne; Grotte du Placard in Charente and others in Southwest France.

Magdalenian peoples produced a wide variety of art, including figurines and cave paintings. Evidence has been found suggesting that Magdalenian peoples regularly engaged in (probably ritualistic) cannibalism along with producing skull cups.

Genetic studies indicate that the Magdalenian peoples were descended mainly from earlier Western European Cro-Magnon groups like the Gravettians present in Western Europe over 30,000 years ago before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), who had retreated to southwestern Europe during the LGM. Madgalenian peoples were largely replaced peoples belonging to the Epigravettian-associated Western Hunter Gatherer (WHG) genetic cluster at the end of the Pleistocene, though in the Iberian Peninsula early Holocene hunter-gatherers retained significant Madgalenian-related ancestry.

Chronology and technology

The Magdalenian complex is widely thought to have originated in the region comprising Southwestern France and Northern Spain. It is thought to have emerged from the preceding Solutrean culture in the region, differentiated from the Solutrean by its increased usage of bone points. The earliest forms of the Magdalenian are either known as the Archaic Magdalenian or the Badegoulian. Magdalenian peoples migrated northwards to recolonise northern Europe around 15,000 years ago following the end of the harsh cold conditions of the Oldest Dryas, reaching northwards to Britain, and as far east as Poland. At this time, another culture, the Epigravettian, existed spanning from the Italian Peninsula to westernmost Russia.

The Magdalenian is divided into six phases generally agreed to have chronological significance (Magdalenian I through VI, I being the earliest and VI being the latest). The earliest phases are recognised by the varying proportion of blades and specific varieties of scrapers, the middle phases marked by the emergence of a microlithic component (particularly the distinctive denticulated microliths), and the later phases by the presence of uniserial (phase5) and biserial 'harpoons' (phase6) made of bone, antler and ivory. Alternatively, the Magdalenian is chronologically divided into the Lower, Middle, and Upper Magdalenian. As with earlier Upper Palaeolithic European cultures, they also produced perforated batons out of antlers, which have an unclear function but may have been used for making rope. thumb|right|Magdalenian people dwelt in tents such as this one of Pincevent (France) that dates to 12,000 years ago.

The large amounts of exotic sea shells and fossils found in Magdalenian sites may be sourced to relatively precise areas and have been used to support hypotheses of Magdalenian hunter-gatherer seasonal ranges, and a complex trade network spanning even into parts of the British Isles.

In northern Spain and south-west France this tool culture was superseded by the Azilian culture. In northern Europe it was followed by variants of the Tjongerian techno-complex.

Members of the Magdalenian culture possessed domestic dogs related to modern dogs.

Art

thumb|Magdalenian cave painting|421x421pxthumb|[[Bison Licking Insect Bite, a Magdalenian antler carving from France, dating to c. 15,000 years ago]]

Bones, reindeer antlers and animal teeth display pictures carved or etched on them of seals, fish, reindeer, mammoths and other creatures.

In the Tuc d'Audoubert cave, an 18-inch clay statue of two bison sculpted in relief was discovered in the deepest room, now known as the Room of the Bisons.

Examples of Magdalenian portable art include batons, figurines, and intricately engraved projectile points, as well as items of personal adornment including sea shells, perforated carnivore teeth (presumably necklaces), and fossils.

Cave sites such as Lascaux contain the best known examples of Magdalenian cave art. The site of Altamira in Spain, with its extensive and varied forms of Magdalenian mobiliary art has been suggested to be an agglomeration site where groups of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers congregated.

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File:Propulseur Mas d'Azil.png

File:Magdalenian horse.jpg

File:Paleolithic horse3.JPG

File:Speerschleuder LaMadeleine.jpg

File:Lascaux painting.jpg|Lascaux cave painting

File:Lascaux II.jpg|Lascaux cave painting

File:Lascaux 017.jpg

File:Lascaux 015.jpg

File:Lascaux-IV 01.jpg

File:Lascaux, Megaloceros.jpg

File:Lascaux2.jpg

File:Scene from one of the cave walls at Lascaux Wellcome M0011686.jpg

File:Reproduction cave of Altamira 02.jpg|Altamira cave painting

File:9 Bisonte Magdaleniense polícromo.jpg

File:Examples of supposed Magdalenian writing on bony substances Wellcome M0015751.jpg

File:Atlatls, 17-12 kya, upper from La Madeleine rockshelter, lower from Le Mas d'Azil, France - Houston Museum of Natural Science - DSC02033.JPG

File:Propulseur - Faon aux oiseaux.jpg

File:Aiguille os 246.1 Perspective.jpg

File:Magdalenian deer, bird and fish.JPG

File:Magdalenian hinds.JPG

File:Grotte d'Enlène gravures engravings Gravuren.jpg

File:Spear thrower carved as a mammothDSCF6961.jpg

File:MNP - Petroglphe 6 Pferde.jpg

File:Parc de la préhistoire - Cheval bondissant.jpg

File:Asta de ciervo tallada (51390102966).jpg

File:Magdalenian tools 17000 9000 BCE Abri de la Madeleine Tursac Dordogne France.jpg

File:Espátula en forma de pez de la cueva de El Pendo.jpg

File:Cheval de Lourdes.jpg

File:Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte Berlin 059.jpg

File:Biche et poissons gravés sur os - grotte de La Vache (Ariège).jpg

File:Bisons Tuc d'Audoubert Musée d'Archéologie Nationale 01042018.jpg

File:Sleeping Reindeer 3 2918856445 7d66cc4796 o.jpg

File:Laténium-dame-Monruz.jpg

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Treatment of the dead

Some skulls were cleaned of soft tissues, then had the facial regions removed, with the remaining brain case retouched, possibly to make the broken edges more regular. This manipulation suggests the shaping of skulls to produce skull cups. Finds of defleshed (as evidenced by cut marks) and cracked bones with human chewing marks at Gough's Cave, England suggests that the Magdalenian peoples there engaged in cannibalism. Cannibalism has been suggested at a dozen other Magadelian sites across the culture's geographic range, representing 25% of all Magdalenian sites, far more than any other European Paleolithic culture.

Genetics

The genes of seven Magdalenians, the El Miron Cluster in Iberia, have shown close relationship to a population who had lived in Northern Europe some 20,000 years previously. The analyses suggested that 70-80% of the ancestry of these individuals was from the population represented by Goyet Q116-1, associated with the Aurignacian culture of about 35,000 BP, from the Goyet Caves in modern Belgium. It has been found that Magdalenians are closely related to Solutreans. Analysis of genomes of GoyetQ2-related Magdalenians suggest that like earlier Cro-Magnon groups, they probably had a relatively dark skin tone compared to modern Europeans.

Around 14-12,000 years ago, the Western Hunter-Gatherer cluster (which predominantly descended from the Villabruna cluster, with possible ancestry related to the Goyet-Q2 cluster In France and Spain, significant GoyetQ2-related ancestry persisted into the Mesolithic and Neolithic, with some Neolithic individuals in France and Spain largely of Early European Farmer descent showing significant GoyetQ2 ancestry.

thumb|center|upright=3|Transition from Magdalenian [[Goyet Caves|Goyet ancestry (green <small></small>, Goyet Q2) to Western Hunter Gatherer (WHG) Villabruna ancestry (orange <small></small>) in European sites, according to timeline and climate evolution.]]

See also

  • Prehistoric Europe
  • Magdalenian Girl
  • Swimming Reindeer
  • Art of the Upper Paleolithic
  • List of Stone Age art
  • Haplogroup I-M170
  • Younger Dryas
  • Montgaudier Cave

References

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

  • <!--Qiaomei Fu, Cosimo Posth, Mateja Hajdinjak, Martin Petr, Swapan Mallick, Daniel Fernandes, Anja Furtwängler, Wolfgang Haak, Matthias Meyer, Alissa Mittnik, Birgit Nickel, Alexander Peltzer, Nadin Rohland, Viviane Slon, Sahra Talamo, Iosif Lazaridis, Mark Lipson, Iain Mathieson, Stephan Schiffels, Pontus Skoglund, Anatoly P. Derevianko, Nikolai Drozdov, Vyacheslav Slavinsky, Alexander Tsybankov, Renata Grifoni Cremonesi, Francesco Mallegni, Bernard Gély, Eligio Vacca, Manuel R. González Morales, Lawrence G. Straus, Christine Neugebauer-Maresch, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Silviu Constantin, Oana Teodora Moldovan, Stefano Benazzi, Marco Peresani, Donato Coppola, Martina Lari, Stefano Ricci, Annamaria Ronchitelli, Frédérique Valentin, Corinne Thevenet, Kurt Wehrberger, Dan Grigorescu, Hélène Rougier, Isabelle Crevecoeur, Damien Flas, Patrick Semal, Marcello A. Mannino, Christophe Cupillard, Hervé Bocherens, Nicholas J. Conard, Katerina Harvati, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, Dorothée G. Drucker, Jiří Svoboda, Michael P. Richards, David Caramelli, Ron Pinhasi, Janet Kelso, Nick Patterson, Johannes Krause, Svante Pääbo & David Reich-->
  • 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