Glossary

A long throwing spear invented in the Upper Palaeolithic. Only the points remain, generally made from reindeer antler. They were attached to the end of long wooden shafts, which no longer survive, as is the case for the majority of objects made from wood at this time.  The Magdalenians put flint bladelets on sagaie points to make them more dangerous to prey.

A discipline closely related to archaeobotany, which studies charcoal found in archaeological contexts.

Name given to the branches of the horns of deer – male red deer and male and female reindeer. In Prehistory, deer antler – and particularly reindeer antler – was a favoured material for the manufacture of tools: spear points, harpoons, spear throwers etc.

An archaeological artefact is any man-made object that was discovered during archaeological excavations. Along with ecofacts, artefacts are part of what we understand as archaeological remains.

Culture from the start of the Upper Palaeolithic (43,000-35,000 years ago), the name of which comes from the small cave of Aurignac (Haute-Garonne). The extent of this culture in temporal and geographical terms (from Spain to the Russian steppes) represented by the last inhabitants of Europe (Homo sapiens sapiens) was very significant and involved a number of regional variations. The Aurignacian is divided into several stages, and is characterised by technical and symbolic innovations and ruptures and by radical new social developments in comparison to the preceding cultures (Middle Palaeolithic). These include in particular the emergence of cave and portable art, the development of the art of personal ornamentation, the diversification of flint tools and the production of weapons and tools from bone and antler.

A wild bovid (Bos primigenius), the ancestor of domestic cattle and which died out in the 17th century as a result of hunting.    

Culture succeeding the Final Upper Solutrean and preceding the early Magdalenian (23,000-20,000 BC) which takes its name from the deposit of Badegoule (Dordogne). The cultural identity of the Badegoulian in relation to the early Magdalenian was definitively established by J. Allain during his excavations at the Abri Fritsch (Indre). Its extent (around 50 sites) was limited to the west of France and the north of Spain. From a technical and technological point of view, the Badegoulian is characterised by flake manufacturing, tools made on thick flakes and the working of reindeer antler by percussion, rather than by double-grooving, as in the Gravettian and Magdalenian. In the Middle and Upper Badegoulian, a specific type of scraper, called a raclette, is the typical tool type. No cave art has been identified and the portable art is very meagre.

Before Present is used in archaeology and geology to refer to dates in comparison with the reference year of 1950. This date was chosen by the American Willard Frank Libby during the first carbon-14 dating trials, for which he was to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960

Figurative or abstract design carried out on a non-mobile medium (cave wall).

Hardened crust that forms on the surface of limestone.

British archaeologist and prehistorian. She studied at Cambridge. In 1925 and 1926, she took part in excavations in Gibraltar and Palestine. She led an expedition to Kurdistan in 1928. She then led the excavations on Mount Carmel in Palestine where, with Dorothea Bate, she revealed the long-term occupation of the Tabun, El Oued, Es-Skhul, Shuqba and Kebara caves in Palestine. From 1939 to 1952, she held the Chair of Archaeology at Cambridge University. She was the first woman professor at Cambridge. During the Second World War, she served as section officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force interpreting aerial photos for the Royal Air Force base at Medmenham.

Culture succeeding the Aurignacian (between around 34,000 and 25,000 years  ago) which takes its name from the site of La Gravette (Dordogne). The extent of its pan-European coverage is remarkable. This culture appeared during a temperate climatic oscillation in the last glaciation, developing during the Upper Pleniglacial period and maintaining significant overall consistency. The Gravettian is subdivided into several stages, sometimes characterised by different tool types (Gravette points, stemmed Font-Robert points, Noailles burins, Isturitz spearpoints etc.). In the late Gravettian, stone tool assemblages become more heterogeneous and the bone and antler tools abundant and diversified. The most numerous, best preserved and most spectacular Palaeolithic graves are Gravettian. The personal ornamentation and portable art (particularly female statuettes) are highly developed, while the cave art is represented by numerous caves in which the theme of negative hands is dominant.

Epipalaeolithic culture named after the site of La Borie del Rey in Lot-et-Garonne, France. The range of distribution of the Laborian (around 10,000 years BP) is limited to the greater southwest region of France. Lithic assemblages with Azilian affinities are characterised by multiple lithic armatures with straight-backed points and a truncated base, corresponding to the definition of Malaurie Points. Big game hunting was dominated by aurochs, horses and stags. The Laborians developed a highly original style of geometric and figurative mobiliary art. Horses and bovines with elongated and disproportionate bodies are decorated with curved lines and chequered, striated or latticed patterning

The Last Glacial Maximum (or LGM), the last glaciation of the Pleistocene, dates back 20,000 years The return of an intense, dry cold led to a reduction in sea levels of around 120 metres.

This chronological evolutive phase of the Magdalenian cultures developed during the Ancient Dryas (13,500/15,500 BCE). In terms of equipment, it is characterised by the major development, even abundance, of bone tools, including spear-throwers, perforated batons, half-round rods, needles, spear points and so on. The unprecedented use of deer bone and antlers was accompanied by the development of mobiliary art in a variety of media. Known for the realism of its figurative representations (particularly animals), the art of engraving, sculpture and sculpture in the round reached its peak in this period. Rock art in rock shelters or caves also developed to its greatest extent since the Aurignacian, particularly in southwest France, the Pyrenees and on the Cantabrian coast. There were growing regional differences despite permanent and repeated contact between regional groups.

Geological subdivision of the Quaternary suceeding the Pliocene. The PleistocenePleistocene (around 2.6 million years to 12,000 years  ago), which includes all recent glaciations, is subdivided into three geological sub-epochs corresponding to specific palaeomagnetic and palaeoclimatic events. It preceded the Holocene.

Figurative or abstract design carried out on a mobile medium in stone, bone, ivory, shell or deer antler.

Opening formed by a rocky overhang, generally located at the base of a cliff, which may have been occupied by Prehistoric humans. Some shelters are sculpted with friezes of bison, horses or ibex, as at Roc-aux-Sorciers (Vienne), la Chaire-à-Calvin (Charente), l'Abri Reverdit or Cap Blanc (Dordogne).

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.

Refers to both the accumulation of layers of rock and its study, which makes it possible to determine chronology (the deepest level being the oldest) and how the rock was deposited (at Étiolles, by flowing water in what is now the Ru des Hauldres or in the Seine, depending on the time).

Born in Mung, Charente-Maritime, France, on 19 July 1900. After earning her baccalaureate at the age of 17, she studied literature in England and submitted a thesis in 1931 on “the influence of Diderot’s biological ideas on his literary oeuvre". In 1932, she met the Abbé Breuil and helped him classify the prehistoric art collections of the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in Bordeaux. She then specialised in prehistory. He invited her and Dorothy Garrod to study caves in Palestine. She also met Germaine (Minne) Henri-Martin and took part in the excavations at Quina (Charente), and then at Fontéchevade. After visiting La Marche cave in Lussac-les-Châteaux with Abbé Breuil, she resumed her research on the Roc-aux-Sorciers site in 1946 in partnership with Garrod. They discovered the rock sculptures together. Following the death of Garrod in 1968, Saint-Mathurin continued to analyse the findings of their excavations. In the late 1960s, Saint-Mathurin was appointed project manager at the Musée d’archéologie nationale. In 1976, she donated a selection of sculpted, engraved and painted blocks from the collapsed ceiling of the deposit to the museum. The blocks have remained in the museum’s collection to this day. She died in 28 August 1991 and bequeathed the deposit to the French State and her complete collection and archives to the Musée d’Archéologie nationale.

The Tardiglacial is the climatic period which marked the end of the last glacial, the Weichselian. It coincided with the first signs of a warming climate and deglaciation following the Last Glacial Maximum (around 20,000 years ago), the coldest period of the last glacial. In north-west Europe the Tardiglacial was marked by strong and fast oscillations in climate, between colder and more temperate periods, with average annual variations in temperature between these periods of the order of 5°C. The archaeological remains found at Étiolles date from the Tardiglacial, but due to imprecise dating have not yet been attributed to a specific climate. This is one of the subjects of the research taking place on the site.

Russian term designating a type of vegetation characteristic of current circumpolar cold regions, but which in glacial periods covered a large part of the west of Europe.

The Upper Magdalenian, the last Magdalenian period, developed during the Bölling and the first part of the Alleröd (13,000/11,000), interrupted by a short cold period. In France and Spain, this period succeeds stratigraphically the Middle Magdalenian period and is characterised by the use of flint weapons and special tools or hard animal materials, such as parrot beak burins, short scrapers, Laugerie-Basse points, harpoons and the like. Lithic tools become increasingly small with an abundance of blades, short flakes and microliths towards the end of the Magdalenian period. The diversification of flint armatures attests to a transformation in hunting methods and an adaptation to new game emerging as a result of climate and palaeoenvironmental changes at the end of the Late Glacial. The systems of artistic representation reveal cultural continuity with the Middle Magdalenian and symbolic innovations such as schematic female figurines and the widespread use of highly structured geometric and abstract motifs on objects made from hard animal materials.