Solutrean

A culture circumscribed in time (26,500-23,000 years ago) and space (from the Paris basin to Portugal), Solutrean takes its name from the site of Solutré (Saône-et-Loire). This culture, subdivided into four stages, emerged between the last two glacial maximums. In terms of technology and typology, other than the common tool types of the Upper Paleolithic, the Solutrean is defined by stone tools often made on very high quality flint, and shaped by the detachment of flat and narrow retouch flakes with parallel edges that largely cover one or both of the faces of the blades or long flakes on which they are made. Depending on the evolutionary stage, the most typical tools are Unifacial points, Laurel-Leaf points, Willow-Leaf points, and Shouldered points.  In the domain of bone and antler tools, the Solutreans invented the eyed needle and the spear thrower (atlatl). Solutrean portable art is not very rich. Cave art is better represented by a number of sculpted shelters (Roc-de-Sers and Fourneau du Diable) and by decorated caves in the Ardèche and the Cantabrian region. The Solutreans also seem to have invented the art of monumental sculpture.