At the origins of Solutrean culture

an original culture

Discovered in September 1866, the Crot du Charnier site at Solutré benefited from the integration of its first researchers into the scholarly circles of their time. Adrien Arcelin (1838-1904) , the site's discoverer, was a historian and archivist trained at the École des Chartes. Henry Testot-Ferry (1826-1869) was a seasoned paleontologist and naturalist. Together, they submitted the remains discovered at the site to the paleontologist Édouard Lartet (1801-1871). Lartet had already confirmed the evidence for the existence of fossil humans , coexisting with extinct species, in 1860 at Aurignac (Haute-Garonne) and especially in 1863-1865 at La Madeleine (Dordogne). As early as 1861, he proposed the first chronology of prehistoric times based on the large mammals found among the remains. Édouard Lartet identified the fauna discovered by Adrien Arcelin and Henry Testot-Ferry, confirming the site's antiquity in the Early Reindeer Age or the last part of the Ice Age.

At the same time, Adrien Arcelin and Henry Testot-Ferry contacted other prehistory researchers: Gabriel de Mortillet (1821-1898) of the newly created National Antiquities Museum (1867), the Englishman Sir John Lubbock , and regional researchers such as Ernest Chantre (1843-1924), curator of the Lyon Museum. They also publicized the site at international congresses (Norwich, 1868) and through publications in scholarly journals: Solutré became a key reference for the entire scientific community.

In 1869, when Gabriel de Mortillet established a new chronological system based on the evolution of prehistoric artifacts and industries from reference sites, he chose Solutré over Laugerie-Haute (Dordogne), which had been discovered earlier, to become the eponymous site of the "Solutré period ." The flint points, known as laurel leaves , discovered in large numbers at the site, became the markers of this period, which was named " the Solutrean " as early as 1872.

stone goldsmiths 

Laurel leaves are leaf-shaped points, oval to lozenge-shaped, often symmetrical, and knapped on both faces. They appear in the middle Solutrean period and continue into its later phase. Their manufacture requires considerable skill and many years of experience in knapping hard rock. Knapped from large, thinned flakes with hammerstones made of hard plant wood or antler (direct organic percussion), their shape and surfaces are smoothed by flat, parallel, and covering retouch , often achieved by pressure with blunt antler points. This Solutrean retouching technique is also applied to domestic tools, perhaps more for aesthetic than functional purposes. Technically sophisticated, the manufacture of Solutrean tools is very demanding.

This requirement also influenced the Solutrean flint knappers' choice of raw materials : homogeneous, high-quality flint was essential for toolmaking. Occasionally, the Solutreans practiced pre-heating flint to improve its workability.

Besides the quality adapted to the size, aesthetic or symbolic criteria sometimes prevail in the choice of raw materials, as suggested by some laurel leaves in rock crystal (hyaline quartz) in the Solutré series or other Solutrean sites (Liveyre cave in Dordogne, Le Placard in Charente, Saulges caves in Mayenne, or the Figuier shelter in Ardèche).

The dimensions of bay leaves indicate three types of use:

• the smallest (3 to 5 cm) are elements of light projectile frames, perhaps arrowheads,
• medium-sized examples (6 to 12 cm) have the weight required to arm larger projectiles: assegais, projected by means of propellants, 
• the largest (more than 14 cm) were used as hunting or butcher knives.

Some sites, located near sources of high-quality raw materials, were used for the production of large bay leaves : Les Maîtreaux in Indre-et-Loire, Pech de la Boissière, and the Creysse Doline in Dordogne. The very large dimensions of some specimens, exceeding 20 cm, seem incompatible with their intended use. The most spectacular example of these remarkable technical feats is a series of 17 exceptionally large bay leaves discovered in 1874 at Volgu in Saône-et-Loire. The largest, measuring 34,2 cm in length, is housed in the Vivant-Denon Museum in Chalon-sur-Saône. Lacking any practical use (the leaves would break), these objects were imbued with symbolic value within the Solutrean communities. The high technical quality of these objects indicates the emergence of specialized craftsmanship and a division of labor within these groups.

The Solutrean in space and time

Geographical and climatic framework of the Solutrean

The Solutrean period was brief and confined to the period around the Last Glacial Maximum, approximately 24,000 years ago. This culture spanned only a few millennia, between 26,000 and 22,500 years ago. At that time, continental glaciers expanded and sea levels fell at their maximum. Average temperatures were 10 to 15 degrees Celsius lower than current seasonal averages. The climate was very cold and arid . The open steppe landscapes were characterized by a cold-climate fauna: reindeer , mammoths, rhinoceroses, musk oxen, and others.

Limited geographically, the Solutrean culture developed in western Europe, bordered by the Rhône Valley to the east, from the Paris Basin to the Mediterranean coast, from the Ardèche Valley to the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. To the west, Solutrean territories met the Atlantic Ocean, from Portugal and the peripheral valleys of the Spanish Meseta, through Cantabria and western Aquitaine, as far as Mayenne. Beyond the natural boundary of the Rhône and Saône rivers, the Alpine and Jura glaciers prevented trade to the east, where other cultural traditions flourished.

Chronological framework

The Solutrean period is divided into three major evolutionary phases, characterized by hunting weapons.

• The last phases of the Gravettian, between 33 and 000 before the present, saw the first examples of flat-faced points which will become characteristic of the ancient Solutrean, from 26 to 000 before the present.
• The middle phase, from 25 to 000 BCE, is characterized by bifacial bay leaves, while the recent period, between 23 and 500 before the present, sees the appearance of notched points, retouched on one or two sides, and willow leaves in central Aquitaine.
• A recently evolved stage only exists in the Iberian Peninsula, where late Solutrean traditions and other types survive: finned points, laurel leaves with concave bases.

The Solutrean bone industry (spears, perforated batons, smoothers, etc.) is not abundant and lacks originality. The first reindeer antler spear -thrower hooks (Combe-Saunière, Dordogne) and the first eyed needles in Western Europe appear in Solutrean equipment.

Solutrean artistic witnesses

The decorated objects are regularly present. Although their decor is quite crude, series ofnotches peripherals orincisions parallel, sometimes arranged in rhythmic series, animate the surfaces of domestic tools or indeterminate bone fragments. Elements of set, in teeth or shells, bear witness to supply circuits from the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts.
Several examples testify to the production of figures stone in Solutré or in Périgord (muskox from Laugerie-Haute). Cave art, not very abundant, including parietal blocks with animal decoration at Roc-de-Sers in Charente or at Fourneau-du-Diable in Dordogne. Well represented in the Ardèche gorges (Oulen, le Figuier, Chabot, La Tête-du-Lion), in Mayenne (Mayenne-Sciences, Margot cave), in Cantabria (Altamira, Chufin, ), the Solutrean figurations feature silhouettes with plump bellies, small heads and short limbs (style 3 by André Leroi-Gourhan). They announce the parietal art of Lascaux, the latest dating of which suggests a Solutrean or Badegoulian age, 23 to 000 before the present, linking them to future artistic traditions of the Magdalenian between 19 and 500 before the present.

Habitat

Solutrean settlements are known both in rock shelters, such as at the sites of Roc-de-Sers in Charente, Fourneau du Diable in Périgord, or La Salpêtrière in Gard, sometimes supplemented with paving or other built structures, and in the form of open-air camps , as at Montaut in Landes or Fressignes in Indre-et-Loire. The first excavations at Solutré (1866-1869), unfortunately imprecise, described circular dwelling structures built into pits in the ground.

scattered human remains

Due to gaps in documentation or the result of funerary practices that prevented the preservation of bodies, no definite intentional burials or complete skeletons are known for the Solutrean period. The scattered human remains (isolated teeth, mandibles, cranial fragments and rare post-cranial elements, as well as a single complete skull and a tibia at Parpallo in Spain) do not allow us to determine the physical characteristics of the Solutreans, who nevertheless fit among the European Homo sapiens of the Ice Age , from whom they do not appear to differ.