The
Aurignacian culture () is an
archaeological culture of the
Upper Palaeolithic, located in
Europe and southwest
Asia. It begins around 40,000 to 36,000
years ago, and lasts until 28,000 to 26,000 years ago. The name originates from the
type site of
Aurignac in the
Haute Garonne area of
France. The Aurignacian culture is considered by some
archaeologists to have co-existed with the
Périgordian culture of tool making.
The
oldest known example of
figurative art, the
Venus of Hohle Fels, comes from this culture. It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at
Schelklingen in
Baden-Württemberg in southern
Germany.
Main characteristics
The people of the Aurignacian culture produced worked bone points with grooves cut in the bottom, and some of the earliest known
cave art, such as the animal engravings at Aldène in south-west France. Their flint tools were more varied than those of earlier industries, employing finer
blades struck from prepared
cores rather than using crude
flakes. The people also made
pendants,
bracelets and
ivory beads, and three-dimensional figurines to ornament themselves. The Aurignacian tool industry is characterized by complex art, which includes figurines depicting faunal representations of the time period associated with now-extinct
mammals, including
mammoths,
rhinoceros, and the European horse, along with anthropomorphized depictions that could be inferred as some of the
earliest evidence of religion.
Bâtons de commandement are also found at their sites. This sophistication and self-awareness leads some archaeologists to consider the makers of Aurignacian
artifacts the first modern humans in Europe. Human remains and Aurignacian
artifacts originally found at
Cro-Magnon in
France support the inference (but do not indisputably establish) that the culture was
modern human rather than
Neanderthal. However, in 2004 direct carbon dating of skeletal human remains at the
Vogelherd cave in south-western
Germany, the site of an important array of Aurignacian artifacts, demonstrated that the modern human remains found in proximity to the artifacts were as recent as 3.5 - 5.0 kya. No human remains matching the dating of the artifacts were found. The possibility that Aurignacian artifacts are attributable to Neanderthals cannot yet be excluded.
In June 2007, a 35,000 year old figurine of a mammoth was discovered in the Vogelherd cave. Currently being studied by the
University of Tübingen, the figurine embodies the intricate and complex artistic characteristics of Aurignacian culture.
One of the most ancient
Venus figurines was discovered in 2008 in Germany. The figurine has been dated to 35,000 years ago. A flute (~22 cm long and 2.2 cm in diameter; from the hollow wing-bone of a giant vulture) along with fragments of ivory flutes found at the same
Hohle Fels Cave in 2009 are the oldest known musical instruments.
Tools
Stone tools from the Aurignacian culture are known as Mode 4, characterised by blades (rather than flakes, typical of mode 2
Acheulean and mode 3
Mousterian) from prepared cores. Also seen throughout the upper paleolithic is a greater degree of tool standardisation and the use of
bone and
antler for tools such as
needles and
harpoons.
See also
