The Magdalenian
Reindeer hunters recolonise a warming Europe with the finest bone and antler work of the Palaeolithic.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 5 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 500 years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
As the ice retreats after the Last Glacial Maximum, the Magdalenian culture spreads from refugia in southwest France and Iberia across Europe, reaching Britain and Poland. Its toolkit is dominated by finely worked antler and bone — harpoons with rows of barbs, needles, spear-throwers carved as animals — and its people produce Altamira, Niaux and the later phases of Lascaux. Genomic work shows Magdalenian populations largely replaced the earlier Gravettian ones.