The Aurignacian () is an

archaeological industry :''Not to be confused with industrial archaeology, the archaeology of (modern) industrial sites.'' In the archaeology of the Stone Age, an industry or technocomplex is a typological classification of stone tools. An industry consists of a nu ...

of the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...

associated with

European early modern humans Early European modern humans (EEMH), or Cro-Magnons, were the first early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') to settle in Europe, migrating from Western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They i ...

(EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of ''

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

'' out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian. An Early Aurignacian or Proto-Aurignacian stage is dated between about 43,000 and 37,000 years ago. The Aurignacian proper lasts from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. A Late Aurignacian phase transitional with the

Gravettian The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by ...

dates to about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago. The

type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron A ...

is the

Cave of Aurignac The Cave of Aurignac is an archaeological site in the commune of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. Sediment excavation and artefact documentation since 1860 confirm the idea of the arrival and permanent presence of Europe ...

Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; oc, Nauta Garona, ; en, Upper Garonne) is a department in the Occitanie region of Southwestern France. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country' ...

, south-west

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. The main preceding period is the

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...

of the '' Neanderthals''. One of the oldest examples of figurative art, the

Venus of Hohle Fels The Venus of Hohle Fels (also known as the Venus of Schelklingen; in German variously ') is an Upper Paleolithic Venus figurine made of mammoth ivory that was unearthed in 2008 in Hohle Fels, a cave near Schelklingen, Germany. It is dated to be ...

, comes from the Aurignacian or Proto-Gravettian and is dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago (though now earlier figurative art may be known, see Lubang Jeriji Saléh). It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at

Schelklingen Schelklingen is a town in the district of Alb-Donau in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is situated 10 km north of Ehingen, and 20 km west of Ulm. Schelklingen and 82% of its territory form part of the Swabian Jura Biosphere Reserve. ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

western Germany The old states of Germany (german: die alten Länder) is a jargon referring to the ten of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) that were part of West Germany and that unified with the eastern German Democratic Republic' ...

. The German

Lion-man The figurine, also called the Lion-man of , is a prehistoric ivory sculpture discovered in Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. The German name, , meaning "lion-person" or "lion-human", is used most frequently because it was discovered ...

figure is given a similar date range. The

Bacho Kiro Bacho Kiro ( bg, Бачо Киро) (7 July 1835 – 28 May 1876) was the nickname of Kiro Petrov Zanev (Киро Петров Занев), a Bulgarian teacher, man of letters and revolutionary who took an active part in the April Uprising. Bach ...

site in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

is one of the earliest known Aurignacian burials. A "

Levantine Aurignacian The Levantine Aurignacian (35,000-29,000 BP, calibrated, 32,000-26,000 BP, non-calibrated) is an Upper Paleolithic culture of the Near-Eastern Levant that evolved from the Emiran culture. It was named so because of the similarity of stone tools ...

" culture is known from the

, with a type of blade technology very similar to the European Aurignacian, following chronologically the

Emiran Emiran culture was a culture that existed in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine , Syria, Jordan, Israel , and Arabia between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic periods. It is the oldest known of the Upper Paleolithic cultures and r ...

and Early Ahmarian in the same area of the Near East, and also closely related to them. The Levantine Aurignacian may have preceded European Aurignacian, but there is a possibility that the Levantine Aurignacian was rather the result of reverse influence from the European Aurignacian: this remains unsettled.

Main characteristics

Expansion of early modern humans from Africa

The Aurignacians are part of the wave of

anatomically modern humans Early modern human (EMH) or anatomically modern human (AMH) are terms used to distinguish '' Homo sapiens'' (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans from exti ...

thought to have spread from

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

through the Near East into

Paleolithic Europe Paleolithic Europe, or Old Stone Age Europe, encompasses the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in Europe from the arrival of the first archaic humans, about 1.4 million years ago until the beginning of the Mesolithic (also Epipaleolithic) around 10,000 ...

, and became known as

, or Cro-Magnons. This wave of anatomically modern humans includes fossils of the

Ahmarian The Ahmarian culture was a Paleolithic archeological industry in Levant dated at 46,000–42,000 BP and thought to be related to Levantine Emiran and younger European Aurignacian cultures. The word “Ahmarian” was adopted from the archaeol ...

Bohunician Bohunician industry was a paleolithic archeological industry in South-Central and Eastern Europe. The artifacts assigned to this culture are dated between roughly 48,000 and 40,000 years ago. They were found at the type site of Brno-Bohunice, S ...

, Aurignacian,

Solutrean The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Paleolithic of the Final Gravettian, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. Solutrean sites have been found in modern-day France, Spain and Portugal. Details ...

and Magdalenian cultures, extending throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), covering the period of roughly 48,000 to 15,000 years ago. The Aurignacian tool industry is characterized by worked

bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...

or antler points with grooves cut in the bottom. Their flint tools include fine

blade A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Histor ...

s and bladelets struck from prepared cores rather than using crude flakes. The people of this culture also produced some of the earliest known cave art, such as the animal engravings at Trois Freres and the paintings at

Chauvet cave The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave (french: Grotte Chauvet-Pont d'Arc, ) in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Pale ...

in southern France. They also made

pendant A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ' ...

bracelet A bracelet is an article of jewellery that is worn around the wrist. Bracelets may serve different uses, such as being worn as an ornament. When worn as ornaments, bracelets may have a supportive function to hold other items of decoration, suc ...

s, and

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals i ...

beads, as well as three-dimensional figurines. Perforated rods, thought to be spear throwers or shaft wrenches, also are found at their sites.

Population

A 2019 demographic analysis estimated a mean population of 1,500 persons (upper limit: 3,300; lower limit: 800) for western and central Europe. A 2005 study estimated the population of Upper Palaeolithic Europe from 40–30 thousand years ago was 1,738–28,359 (average 4,424).

Association with modern humans

The sophistication and self-awareness demonstrated in the work led archaeologists to consider the makers of Aurignacian artifacts the first modern humans in Europe. Human remains and Late Aurignacian artifacts found in juxtaposition support this inference. Although finds of human skeletal remains in direct association with Proto-Aurignacian technologies are scarce in Europe, the few available are also probably modern human. The best dated association between Aurignacian industries and human remains are those of at least five individuals from the

Mladeč caves , cs, Bočkova díra , image = Mladečská jeskyně 2.JPG , image_size = 240 , alt = , caption = Inside the cave , map_type = Czech Republic , map_alt = Mladečské Caves in the Czech Republic , map_caption = Location in the Czech Republic ...

in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, dated by direct radiocarbon measurements of the skeletal remains to at least 31,000–32,000 years old. At least three robust, but typically anatomically-modern individuals from the

Peștera cu Oase Peștera cu Oase (, meaning "The Cave with Bones") is a system of 12 karstic galleries and chambers located near the city Anina, in the Caraș-Severin county, southwestern Romania, where some of the oldest European early modern human (EEMH) rem ...

cave in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, were dated directly from the bones to ca. 35,000–36,000 BP. Although not associated directly with archaeological material, these finds are within the chronological and geographical range of the Early Aurignacian in southeastern Europe. On genetic evidence it has been argued that both Aurignacian and the Dabba culture of North Africa came from an earlier big game hunting

culture of the

Art

Aurignacian figurines have been found depicting faunal representations of the time period associated with now-extinct mammals, including

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...

, and

tarpan The term tarpan (''Equus ferus ferus'') refers to free-ranging horses of the Russian steppe from the 18th to the 20th century. It is generally unknown whether those horses represented genuine wild horses, feral domestic horses or hybrids. The las ...

, along with anthropomorphized depictions that may be interpreted as some of the earliest evidence of religion. Many 35,000-year-old animal figurines were discovered in the

Vogelherd Cave The Vogelherd Cave (german: Vogelherdhöhle , or simply ''Vogelherd'') is located in the eastern Swabian Jura, south-western Germany. This limestone karst cave came to scientific and public attention after the 1931 discovery of the Upper Palaeol ...

in Germany. One of the horses, amongst six tiny mammoth and horse ivory figures found previously at Vogelherd, was sculpted as skillfully as any piece found throughout the Upper Paleolithic. The production of ivory beads for body ornamentation was also important during the Aurignacian. The famous paintings in Chauvet cave date from this period. Typical statuettes consist of women that are called

Venus figurines A Venus figurine is any Upper Palaeolithic statuette portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.Fagan, Brian M., Beck, Charlotte, "Venus Figurines", ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'', 1996, Oxford University Press, pp. 740–741 Most ...

. They emphasize the hips, breasts, and other body parts associated with fertility. Feet and arms are lacking or minimized. One of the most ancient

figurines A figurine A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many medi ...

is the

, discovered in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany. The figurine has been dated to 35,000 years ago and is the earliest known, undisputed example of a depiction of a human being in prehistoric art. The Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave of Germany's Swabian Alb and dated to 40,000 years ago, is the oldest known anthropomorphic animal figurine in the world. Aurignacian finds include bone

flutes The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

. The oldest undisputed musical instrument was the Hohle Fels Flute discovered in the

Hohle Fels The ''Hohle Fels'' () (also ''Hohlefels'', ''Hohler Fels'', German for "hollow rock") is a cave in the Swabian Jura of Germany that has yielded a number of important archaeological finds dating from the Upper Paleolithic. Artifacts found in the ...

cave in Germany's Swabian Alb in 2008. The flute is made from a vulture's wing bone perforated with five finger holes, and dates to approximately 35,000-40,000 years ago. A flute was also found at the Abri Blanchard in southwestern France.

Richard Leakey Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (19 December 1944 – 2 January 2022) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician. Leakey held a number of official positions in Kenya, mostly in institutions of archaeology and wildlife conse ...

& Roger Lewin, ''Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human'' (1992)

Gallery

File:Floete Schwanenknochen Geissenkloesterle Blaubeuren.jpg, Bone flute, 35,000-40,000 years old.

Landesmuseum Württemberg The Landesmuseum Württemberg (Württemberg State Museum) is the main historical museum of the Württemberg part of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It emerged from the 16th-century “Kunstkammer” ( Cabinet of art and curiosities) of t ...

File:Adorant, Geisenklösterle, Blaubeuren-Weiler, Alb-Donau-Kreis, Aurignacian culture, 35,000 to 45,000 years old, ivory - Landesmuseum Württemberg - Stuttgart, Germany - DSC02709.jpg, The Adorant of Geisenklösterle, Germany File:Loewenmensch1.jpg, The Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany File:Mammoth, Geisenklösterle, Blaubeuren-Weiler, Alb-Donau-Kreis, Aurignacian culture, 35,000 to 45,000 years old, ivory - Landesmuseum Württemberg - Stuttgart, Germany - DSC02710.jpg, Mammoth figurine from Geisenklösterle, Germany File:Rhinos Chauvet Cave.jpg,

Chauvet Cave The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave (french: Grotte Chauvet-Pont d'Arc, ) in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Pale ...

painting, France File:Chauvet´s cave horses.jpg,

painting, France File:Grotte d'Aurignac-Main en réserve-1962.jpg, A painting of a hand in the

, France File:Stone Age Animal Carving, Hayonim Cave, 28000 BP.jpg, A carving of a running horse, Hayonim Cave,

. File:Stone Age Jewelry, Fazael, Upper Paleolithic, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.jpg, Jewelry, Fazael,

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, Upper Paleolithic. File:Pendants, Aurignacian culture, 31000-24000 BC, various materials - Cinquantenaire Museum - Brussels, Belgium - DSC08704.jpg, Aurignacian jewellery, Belgium File:Engraved plaque from Lartet.jpg, Engraved plaque from Abri Lartet, France File:Blanchard plaque.jpg, Engraved plaque from Abri Blanchard, France File:Aurignacian musical bow.jpg, Possible musical bow from Geisenklösterle, Germany File:Venus of Hohle Fels URMU.jpg, Venus of Hohle Fels

Tools

Stone tools A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

from the Aurignacian culture are known as Mode 4, characterized by blades (rather than flakes, typical of mode 2

Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

and mode 3

) from prepared cores. Also seen throughout the

is a greater degree of tool standardization and the use of

and antler for tools. Based on the research of scraper reduction and paleoenvironment, the early Aurignacian group moved seasonally over greater distances to procure reindeer herds within cold and open environments than those of the earlier tool cultures. Image:Sagaie base fendue.jpg, A bone point Image:Grattoir à museau plat sur lame LARTET.jpg, A scraper from

Aurignac Aurignac (; oc, Aurinhac) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France, close to the Pyrénées. It was the seat of the former canton of Aurignac (population 4,160), which was composed of 19 communes. It is part of the an ...

(France) Image:Lames aurignaciennes.jpg, Aurignacian blades Image:Pointe à dos MHNT.PRE.2009.0.227.4 (2).jpg, Dufour bladelet File:Aurignacian Culture Bone Tools, Hayonim Cave, 30000 BP.jpg, Bone tools, Hayonim Cave, 30000 BP. File:Aurignacien - Feuersteingeräte. Fundstücke aus der Göpfelsteinhöhle in Veringenstadt.jpg, Aurignacian

microliths A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Th ...

Genetics

In a genetic study published in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' in May 2016, the remains of an early Aurignacian individual from modern-day

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

were examined. He belonged to the paternal haplogroup C1a and the maternal haplogroup M.

Haplogroup A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the el, ἁπλοῦς, ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and en, group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share ...

s identified in other Aurignacian samples are the paternal haplogroups IJ and K2a; and mt-DNA haplogroup N, R, and U. Haplogroup I emerged about 35 to 30 thousand years ago, either in Europe or Western Asia. Haplogroup I appears to have arisen in Europe, so far being found in Palaeolithic sites throughout Europe. Mt-haplogroup U5 arose in Europe just prior to the LGM, between 35 and 25 thousand years ago.

Location

Asia

Lebanon/Palestine/Israel region *Contained within a stratigraphic column, along with other cultures.

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

*Many sites in Siberia including around Lake Baikal, the

Ob River } The Ob ( rus, Обь, p=opʲ: Ob') is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia; and together with Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . It forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins ...

valley, and

Minusinsk Minusinsk (russian: Минуси́нск; kjh, Минсуғ) is a historical town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. Population: 44,500 (1973). Geography Minusinsk marks the center of the Minusinsk Hollow, one of the most important archaeologic ...

Notes

References

Sources

External links

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 {{Authority control Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe Peopling of Europe Industries (archaeology)