Venus of Lespugue
These venus figurines are typical of the Gravettian culture

The diagnostic artifact of the industry is a small pointed restruck blade with a blunt but straight back, known as a Noailles burin. Artistic achievements of the Gravettian cultural stage included the Venus figurines. The industry had counterparts across central Europe and into Russia.

Gravettian culture

A phase (c.28,000?23,000 ya) of the European Upper Paleolithic that is characterized by a stone-tool industry with small pointed blades used for big-game hunting (bison, horse, reindeer and mammoth). It is divided into two regional groups: the western Gravettian, mostly known from cave sites in France, and the eastern Gravettian, with open sites of specialized mammoth hunters on the plains of central Europe and Russia. Some early examples of cave art and the famous 'Venus' figurines were made by Gravettian artists.

External links

• Cave sites in France
• Picture Gallery of the Paleolithic (reconstructional palaeoethnology), Libor Balįk at the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Archaeology in Brno, The Center for Paleolithic and Paleoethnological Research

See also

• Upper Paleolithic
• Perigordian
• Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures
• Solutrean
• Venus figurines

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