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International audience; The osseous projectile points and tools of hunter-gatherers from the European Pleistocene compare surprisingly well with the equipment of hunters from other continents, including the New World. This is especially true for harpoon heads and barbed spear points. These fundamental hunting and fishing weapons are common to the prehistoric populations of the Old World and to hunter-gatherers of the northern and southern regions of the New World. In southernmost South America, osseous projectiles have survived the millennia since the first human occupations, about 6200 years ago, until modern times. Beyond certain typological, and likely functional, constants that are commonly found among cold region hunters, they also display specific features (size, morphology of the proximal ends, raw materials) that seem to reflect techniques and hunting strategies associated with particular species. In this chapter, our intention is to examine potentially meaningful similarities between this equipment from Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, known through both archaeological and ethnological documents, and that of European Pleistocene hunters. We will emphasize certain morphological and technical features, such as proximal shapes for hafting mechanisms or line attachment systems, and the number and type of barbs, along with their functional causes and consequences. Our results indicate that in the current state of the debate, fishing, fowling and small mammal hunting is the most plausible hypothesis for the use of barbed elements in the terrestrial context of most Upper Magdalenian sites. Though we cannot exclude the possibility that Upper Magdalenian groups were among the very few hunter-gatherers to use detachable harpoons to hunt larger terrestrial species, such as ungulates when crossing rivers, specific evidence is currently missing.

This chapter discusses Croatian sites that contain early Upper Paleolithic osseous points and alternative interpretations of this evidence. At Vindija and Velika pecina, sites in the region of Hrvatsko zagorje (northwestern Croatia), split base and massive base (Mladec) osseous points were found in early Upper Paleolithic contexts associated with a very limited number of lithic finds. The unusual association of Neanderthal remains with Upper Palaeolithic osseous points in Vindija level G1 has been explained either as a result of stratigraphic mixing, or as a true cultural assemblage. Further south at Bukovac pecina, in the region of Gorski kotar, another point was found. The base of this point is missing, but it was probably massive in section. A small split-base point, similar to the points found in Franco-Cantabrian Magdalenian contexts, was found at Sandalja II on the Istrian peninsula. Osseous points from all of these sites mark the first appearance of osseous technology in the different regions of Croatia.

Research on the subject of the Magdalenian is inextricably connected with the recolonization of Central Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum. Chapter 8 reviews the current theory of a unidirectional expansion of hunter-gatherers from the Franco-Cantabrian region up to the Bug river in eastern Poland. By formulating expectations about the structure of the archaeological record as it should form in the case of a unidirectional expansion and discussing these expectations against the actual observations, the current theory is shown to be plagued with several inconsistencies and shortcomings. Eventually, an alternative interpretation of a bidirectional recolonization from both Franco-Cantabria and Eastern Central Europe is proposed, which is in better accordance with the archaeological record.

The way the Magdalenian is perceived today is strongly influenced by early works, particularly those which deal with its chronological and spatial structure. Chapter 4 therefore elaborates on several aspects of Magdalenian research history relevant to this study, such as the work at the eponymous rock shelter of La Madeleine, the chronological subdivision of the Magdalenian by Henry Breuil and Denis Peyrony, and the critique to which it was subject. Special attention is given to lithic triangles and the question whether they possess chronological significance, which is found to be the case. Eventually, relevant theories about the Magdalenian’s inner structure are discussed emphasizing those concerned with the definition of groups.

Chapter 7 discusses the five regional groups identified in Chap. 6. It starts by a short reflection of ethnographic observations on territories and land-use patterns. Then, each regional groups is discussed individually, starting with a short characterization regarding the number of sites, the reliability of their classification as Magdalenian, and the ratio of open-air sites to rock shelters and cave sites. Subsequently, aspects of the specific landscape and environmental setting of each group are discussed. Based on these observations and with reference to the ethnographic examples, an estimation of the group’s territory is given. Eventually, each subchapter closes with a reflection about possible land-use patterns.

Is it possible to identify regional groups in the archaeological record of the Magdalenian in Central Europe? If yes, what is the nature of these groups and how do they interrelate? And what do the results imply for the current view of the recolonization of Central Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum? These and other questions—central to the study at hand—are posed in Chap. 1. The introduction explains the delimitation of the investigated area referred to as “Central Europe,” gives a first overview of the scope of this study and the sites integrated in its analyses, and briefly explains its outline and conduct.

The Central European Magdalenian has been shown to exhibit different properties on different scales of observation. A pan-Magdalenian distribution of certain concepts contrasts with signals that allow for the identification of regional groups. In Chap. 9, the question is asked as to how a social system must be organized for being able to generate regionally discernible groups on the one hand, while allowing for large-scale intergroup similarities on the other in a hunter-gatherer context. Based on the results found in the previous chapters, the idea is put forward that the Magdalenian society might have resembled a small-world network and a model of its potential structure is proposed.

This monograph on the Central European Magdalenian aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the archeological record of this period. It sheds new light on five regional groups between the Rhone valley to the west and the Vistula-valley to the east, which existed roughly between 20,000 and 14,000 years ago. Readers will discover that these groups are characterized with regard to their environmental setting (including faunal and vegetational aspects), lithic raw material and mollusk shell procurement, typology, technology and artesian craftworks. The work also explores an alternative interpretation of bidirectional recolonization from both Franco-Cantabria and Eastern Central Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum. This book will appeal to researchers and scholars in archeology and cognate fields.

The Magdalenian in Central Europe is not a completely homogeneous unit, but exhibits regional differences. This chapter analyzes the inner structure of the Central European Magdalenian (CEM) in terms of spatial and temporal variability. It starts by critically reviewing the recorded assemblages and identifying major factors that determine their distribution pattern. In a second step, lithic raw material acquisition and sources of fossil and subrecent marine mollusks are analyzed to estimate site catchment areas as well as regional and supra-regional interaction patterns. Subsequently the typological spectrum and the applied knapping techniques are investigated and analyzed statistically. Last, some aspects of CEM sculptures and engravings discussed with regard to similarities and differences in different regions. The joined evaluation of the individual results is used to distinguish regional groups within the CEM.

Bajondillo Cave is located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. The stratigraphy of the cave comprises a long chrono-cultural sequence (Middle Paleolithic, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian, Epipaleolithic and Neolithic). One of the outstanding elements of this site is the presence of Aurignacian levels overlaying late Mousterian levels, unknown in other sites of the region. In this paper we present new data (techno-cultural, chronological, environmental, landscape usage and use-wear analysis of lithic tools) from the late Middle Paleolithic level Bj/14. We also compare this information to previous knowledge of the late Middle Paleolithic from Southern Iberia. Available data suggests that there is little change within the local Middle Paleolithic and that an abrupt transition to the Upper Paleolithic took place between 3.5 and 7 kyr later than in the northern Iberian Peninsula.

In the most general sense mining can be regarded as extension of the search for natural materials that could be used for the fabrication of tools and weapons or as ornaments. Thus the origins of mining go back to the Palaeolithic, even if it may often prove difficult to find any remains of such activities of this period. Nevertheless, archaeological evidence shows that in the Olduvai gorge australopithecus-men selected not only stone material for tool manufacture but also hematite rocks for use as pigments more than a million years ago (Wreschner 1980). Homo erectus used a variety of red ochre pieces to apply paint either to objects or himself at Terra Amata near Nice (de Lumley 1966). About 100,000 years ago homo neanderthalensis selected various red pigments (red chalk, red ochre, hematite, cinnabar) from the range of materials hitherto used only for tools to express certain ideas in painting. Neanderthal man was the first to celebrate burials and therefore obviously had already developed ideas of life after death. The use of red dyes is thought to represent the colour of blood and thus the colour of life. In Hungary there is the earliest evidence that Neanderthal man not only collected red stones but also dug into the ground to obtain the “blood stone” (Meszaros and Vertes 1955), and in South Africa Neanderthal man even dug underground for the same purpose some 40,000 years ago (Dart and Beaumont 1969). The use of pigments markedly increased with the advent of homo sapiens sapiens about 35,000 years ago (Mousterian). Presently, a 15,000 years old (Magdalenian) underground mine, which was exploited for hematite, is being excavated on the Aegean island of Thasos (Koukouli-Chrysanthaki et al. 1988).

First evidence for the presence of salmon in our waters is provided by the fossils of the Grotte de la Riera in the Sella basin. Their age is estimated from strata at between 21,000 and 17,000 to 10,750 years. These coincide with the climatic period temperate — cold and humid (Strauss, Clarke and Ortea, 1980). In the same way one finds the vertebrae of salmon in the Solutreen and Magdalenien levels of the Altamira Grotto (Cantabria) dating back more than 10,000 years (Jusue Mendicouague, 1953). The author found some similarities between the Magdalenian culture and the Lapps and Eskimos in trying to correlate them with the prehistory of the salmon in the north of Spain.