L’extension africaine en Europe méridionale: le Solutréen

Abstract

The vast Aterian civilization occupied the entire area of the modern Sahara, between the Nile, the Senegal and the Maghreb during tens of thousands of years. Its tools are well known, which tend to become smaller and lighter during the later phases in the Northwest (modern Morocco). Rigorously Paleolithic art is now known from this period in Upper Egypt, dating prior to 23,000 BP (Huyge 2013). Its stylistic patterns are identical to those of rare sites attributed to definitive Solutrean in Iberia, specifically when bifacial indus- tries arrived as the «Middle Solutrean». The Proto-Solutrean phases grouped under this term in fact belong to Gravettian variants coming from Central Europe and were incorrectly interpreted. During its European expansion, the Solutrean creates a clear break in the prehistory of Europe. Limited in its extremely western part, it rapidly disappeared when the last Gravettians adopted ways of life and values leading to the expan- sion and development of the Magdalenian.