Magdalenian culture extended across Europe, and regional variants appeared in both the technical and symbolic realms. If we take only the Middle Magdalenian culture in western France, one cultural group – evidence of which has been found from the Jura to the Gironde – can be distinguished by their creation of "navettes" and long, double-bevel sagaie points. During the same period, in an area that stretched from northern Spain to the Parisian basin, other groups were manufacturing a different projectile point: the so-called Lussac-Angles sagaie.
Regional specificities are even more sharply visible in the symbolic realm. Portable art always played a key role in the characterisation and structuring of the Magdalenian. Thus, all art found east of the département of Vienne is characterised by a naturalistic figurative art on stone, a significant portion of which depicts human figures. It features two original elements: horse incisors engraved on their labial surface with a triangle or a square filled with very fine hash markings, and ivory stomach beads.
On the other hand, the navettes group is defined by very simplistic representations in which sexual scenes, angular human faces and decoration with small hollows are the dominant themes.
The Pyrenean group can be distinguished by their perforated discs, contours découpés and small stone statues of horses. Within this group, some productions were much more local: the "fawn with birds" theme sculpted on atlatls is found in the Ariège Pyrenees, while the curling shapes engraved onto half-round rods are the work of groups in the French Pyrenees.
