w:Solutrean

The term Solutrean comes from the type-site of "Cros du Charnier", dating to around 21,000 years ago and located at Solutré, in east-central France near Mâcon. The Rock of Solutré site was discovered in 1866 by the French geologist and paleontologist Henry Testot-Ferry. It is now preserved as the Parc archéologique et botanique de Solutré.

The industry was named by Gabriel de Mortillet to describe the second stage of his system of cave chronology, following the Mousterian, and he considered it synchronous with the third division of the Quaternary period.{{EB1911 |wstitle=Solutrian Epoch |inline=1 |volume=25 |page=377}} The era's finds include tools, ornamental beads, and bone pins as well as prehistoric art.

Solutrean tool-making employed techniques not seen before and not rediscovered for millennia. The Solutrean has relatively finely worked, bifacial points made with lithic reduction percussion and pressure flaking rather than flintknapping. Knapping was done using antler batons, hardwood batons and soft stone hammers. This method permitted the working of delicate slivers of flint to make light projectiles and even elaborate barbed and tanged arrowheads. Large thin spearheads; scrapers with edge not on the side but on the end; flint knives and saws, but all still chipped, not ground or polished; long spear-points, with tang and shoulder on one side only, are also characteristic implements of this industry. Bone and antler were used as well.

The Solutrean may be seen as a transitional stage between the flint implements of the Mousterian and the bone implements of the Magdalenian epochs. Faunal finds include horses, reindeer, ibex, mammoths, cave lions, rhinoceroses, bears and aurochs.{{Cite journal |last=Yravedra |first=José |last2=Julien |first2=Marie-Anne |last3=Alcaraz-Castaño |first3=Manuel |last4=Estaca-Gómez |first4=Verónica |last5=Alcolea-González |first5=Javier |last6=de Balbín-Behrmann |first6=Rodrigo |last7=Lécuyer |first7=Christophe |last8=Marcel |first8=Claude Hillaire |last9=Burke |first9=Ariane |date=15 May 2016 |title=Not so deserted…paleoecology and human subsistence in Central Iberia (Guadalajara, Spain) around the Last Glacial Maximum |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116300907 |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |volume=140 |pages=21–38 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.03.021 |issn=0277-3791 |access-date=3 March 2024 |via=Elsevier Science Direct}} Solutrean finds have also been made in the caves of Les Eyzies and {{ill|Laugerie-Haute|fr}}, and in the Lower Beds of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, England (Proto-Solutrean). The industry first appeared in what is now Spain{{citation needed|date=July 2016}}, and disappears from the archaeological record around 17,000 BP.

Examination of physical remains from the Solutrean period has determined that they were of a slightly more gracile type than the preceding Gravettian culture. Males were rather tall, with some skeletons being up to 179 cm tall.{{Cite journal|last=White|first=Randall|date=January 2008|title=The Archaeology of Solvieux: An Upper Palaeolithic Open Air Site in France|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230413975|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=103|pages=228–229|doi=10.1525/aa.2001.103.1.228|via=researchgate}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780306462580|title=Encyclopedia of Prehistory: Volume 4: Europe|date=2001|publisher=Springer US|isbn=978-0-306-46258-0|editor-last=Peregrine|editor-first=Peter N.|language=en|editor-last2=Ember|editor-first2=Melvin}}{{Cite journal|last1=Straus|first1=L.|last2=Morales|first2=M. R.|date=2009|title=A preliminary description of Solutrean occupations in El Mirón cave (Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria)|s2cid=210020037|language=en}} Volume 4 of the Portuguese Magazine of Archaeology from 2001 examined a Solutrean female individual whose physical remains are described as "having postcranial elements that derive from a relatively small and gracile individual".{{Cite journal|last=Trinkaus|first=Erik|date=July 2001|title=Upper Paleolithic human remains from the Gruta do Caldeirão, Tomar, Portugal|url=http://www.bristol.ac.uk/archanth/staff/zilhao/rpa2001.pdf|journal=Portuguese Magazine of Archaeology|volume=4|pages=1|via=bristol.ac.uk}} The teeth of Solutrean individuals are described as being similar in appearance to those belonging to the people of the Gravettian.{{Cite journal|last=Heinrich|first=Hartmut|date=1 March 1988|title=Origin and consequences of cyclic ice rafting in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean during the past 130,000 years|url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2F0033-5894%2888%2990057-9|journal=Quaternary Research|language=en|volume=29|issue=2|pages=142–152|doi=10.1016/0033-5894(88)90057-9|bibcode=1988QuRes..29..142H |s2cid=129842509 |issn=0033-5894}}

Analysis of genomics of Solutrean-related individuals has found that they are unrelated to ancient or modern Native Americans and are instead related to earlier Western European Cro-Magnons, particularly earlier Gravettian-producing individuals from France and Spain, as well to the producers of the subsequent Magdalenian culture.{{Cite journal |last1=Posth |first1=Cosimo |last2=Yu |first2=He |last3=Ghalichi |first3=Ayshin |last4=Rougier |first4=Hélène |last5=Crevecoeur |first5=Isabelle |last6=Huang |first6=Yilei |last7=Ringbauer |first7=Harald |last8=Rohrlach |first8=Adam B. |last9=Nägele |first9=Kathrin |last10=Villalba-Mouco |first10=Vanessa |last11=Radzeviciute |first11=Rita |last12=Ferraz |first12=Tiago |last13=Stoessel |first13=Alexander |last14=Tukhbatova |first14=Rezeda |last15=Drucker |first15=Dorothée G. |date=2 March 2023 |title=Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=615 |issue=7950 |pages=117–126 |bibcode=2023Natur.615..117P |doi=10.1038/s41586-023-05726-0 |issn=0028-0836 |pmc=9977688 |pmid=36859578}}{{Cite journal |last=Villalba-Mouco |first=Vanessa |last2=van de Loosdrecht |first2=Marieke S. |last3=Rohrlach |first3=Adam B. |last4=Fewlass |first4=Helen |last5=Talamo |first5=Sahra |last6=Yu |first6=He |last7=Aron |first7=Franziska |last8=Lalueza-Fox |first8=Carles |last9=Cabello |first9=Lidia |last10=Cantalejo Duarte |first10=Pedro |last11=Ramos-Muñoz |first11=José |last12=Posth |first12=Cosimo |last13=Krause |first13=Johannes |last14=Weniger |first14=Gerd-Christian |last15=Haak |first15=Wolfgang |date=1 March 2023 |title=A 23,000-year-old southern Iberian individual links human groups that lived in Western Europe before and after the Last Glacial Maximum |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-01987-0 |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |language=en |doi=10.1038/s41559-023-01987-0 |issn=2397-334X |pmc=10089921 |pmid=36859553}} It has been found that Solutreans are also closely related to Aurignacians.

{{main|Solutrean hypothesis}}

The Solutrean hypothesis argues that people from Europe may have been among the earliest settlers of the Americas.{{cite journal

|title = The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: a possible Paleolithic route to the New World

|first1 = Bruce

|last1 = Bradley

|author-link2 = Dennis Stanford

|first2 = Dennis

|last2 = Stanford

|journal = World Archaeology

|year = 2004

|volume = 36

|issue = 4

|pages = 459–478

|url = http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20%26%20Stanford%202004.pdf

|access-date = 1 March 2012

|doi = 10.1080/0043824042000303656

|citeseerx = 10.1.1.694.6801

|s2cid = 161534521

|archive-date = 20 March 2013

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130320033824/http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20%26%20Stanford%202004.pdf

|url-status = dead

}}{{cite news

| last=Carey |first=Bjorn

| date=19 February 2006

| url=http://www.livescience.com/history/060219_first_americans.html

| title=First Americans may have been European

| work=Live Science

| access-date=1 March 2012

}} Its notable recent proponents include Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter.{{cite news

|newspaper=The Washington Post

|title=Theory jolts familiar view of first Americans

|date=1 March 2012

|pages=A1, A9

|access-date=1 March 2012

|first=Brian |last=Vastag

|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/radical-theory-of-first-americans-places-stone-age-europeans-in-delmarva-20000-years-ago/2012/02/28/gIQA4mriiR_story.html

}} This hypothesis contrasts with the mainstream archaeological consensus that the North American continent was first populated by people from Asia, either by the Bering land bridge (i.e. Beringia) at least 13,500 years ago,Mann, Charles C. (Nov 2013), "The Clovis Point and the Discovery of America's First Culture," Smithsonian Magazine, [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-clovis-point-and-the-discovery-of-americas-first-culture-3825828/] or by maritime travel along the Pacific coast, or by both. The idea of a Clovis-Solutrean link remains controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance. The hypothesis is challenged by large gaps in time between the Clovis culture and Solutrean eras, a lack of evidence of Solutrean seafaring, lack of specific Solutrean features and tools in Clovis technology, the difficulties of the route, and other issues.{{cite journal

|last=Straus |first=L.G.

|title=Solutrean settlement of North America? A review of reality

|journal=American Antiquity

|date=April 2000|volume=65|issue=2|pages=219–226 |doi=10.2307/2694056|jstor=2694056

|s2cid=162349551

}}{{cite journal

|author=Westley, Kieran and Justin Dix

|title=The Solutrean Atlantic Hypothesis: A View from the Ocean

|journal=Journal of the North Atlantic

|year=2008

|volume=1 |pages=85–98

|doi=10.3721/J080527

|s2cid=130294767

}}

In 2014, the autosomal DNA of a male infant (Anzick-1) from a 12,500-year-old deposit in Montana was sequenced.{{cite journal|title=The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana |vauthors=Rasmussen M, Anzick SL, etal |journal=Nature |volume=506 |pages=225–229 |year=2014 |doi=10.1038/nature13025 |pmid=24522598 |issue=7487 |pmc=4878442|bibcode=2014Natur.506..225R }} The skeleton was found in close association with several Clovis artifacts. Comparisons showed strong affinities with DNA from Siberian sites, and virtually ruled out any close affinity of Anzick-1 with European sources. The DNA of the Anzick-1 sample showed strong affinities with sampled Native American populations, which indicated that the samples derive from an ancient population that lived in or near Siberia, the Upper Paleolithic Mal'ta population.{{cite news|title=Ancient American's genome mapped |publisher=BBC News |date=14 February 2014 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26172174}}

File:Solutrean tools 22000 17000 Crot du Charnier Solutre Pouilly Saone et Loire France.jpg|Solutrean tools, 22,000–17,000 BP, Crot du Charnier, Solutré-Pouilly, Saône-et-Loire, France

File:Biface feuille de laurier.JPG|Flint point from Volgu in the National Archeological Museum in France

File:Abris sous roches du Solutréen.JPG|Solutrean caves in Aujac, Gard

File:Altamira-8.jpg|Solutrean cave art at Altamira

{{s-start}}

{{succession box|title=Solutrean|before=Gravettian|after=Magdalenian|years=22,000–17,000 BP}}

{{s-end}}

• Franco-Cantabrian region
• Gravettian
• Last Glacial Maximum

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|Solutrean}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060228200216/http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mt.php?a=47 Clovis and Solutrean: Is There a Common Thread?] by James M. Chandler
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/columbus.shtml Stone Age Columbus] BBC TV programme summary
• [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3116_stoneage.html "America's Stone Age Explorers"] transcript of 2004 NOVA program on PBS
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060114124835/http://www.primtech.net/Summer2003/Solutreanartifacts.htm Images of Solutrean artifacts]
• [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/radical-theory-of-first-americans-places-stone-age-europeans-in-delmarva-20000-years-ago/2012/02/28/gIQA4mriiR_story.html Radical theory of first Americans places Stone Age Europeans in Delmarva 20,000 years ago] Washington Post article from 28 February 2012
• [http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/aagalery.htm 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

{{Prehistoric technology| tools| state=expanded}}

Category:Gravettian

Category:Archaeological cultures of Europe

Category:Archaeological cultures in France

Category:Archaeological cultures in Portugal

Category:Archaeological cultures in Spain

Category:Saône-et-Loire

Category:Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe

Category:Industries (archaeology)