Gravettian Projectile Points: Considerations About the Evolution of Osseous Hunting Weapons in France

Abstract

The transition from the Aurignacian to the Gravettian witnessed important environmental, economic and social changes. These changes are especially evident in hunting weapons. Some Aurignacian points (split-based points) disappear from the archaeological record, others (simple-based points) remain, and new types (bevelled based points) appear, some of which will persist long after the Gravettian. Others become characteristic of the Gravettian, with some specific to certain phases ('Isturitz points', simple-based points with mesial incisions). In contrast with the Aurignacian, Gravettian projectile points become more and more refined and standardized. These changes are closely related to the introduction of a new method of blank extraction: the 'debitage by extraction with the groove and splinter technique' (DE with GST). Owing to the diversity of sedimentary, environmental, and cultural contexts in which Gravettian techno-complexes are found, this chapter will focus on osseous points discovered in France. The economic, environmental, and sociological factors involved in the transformation of this equipment during the Gravettian is outlined and discussed.

The Bone Sumak for Infant Care, an Invention From Southern Siberian Nomadism or Contact With the Hunnic Tribes?

“…D'Errico /Henshilwood, 2007;D'Errico et al, 2012;Henshilwood et al, 2001) and early Upper Palaeolithic Eurasian (e.g. Goutas, 2016;Tejero, & 2016Wolf et al, 2016) assemblages, their absence in similarly aged sites in Sahul seemed to support this notion. Indeed, it was posited that bone technology was part of a 'phase of innovation' in southwest Australia around 20,000 years BP, where it was a "supplement" to the "flakebased stone tool assemblages" (Franklin/Habgood, 2007:11), while O'Connor and Hiscock (2014) regarded the apparent restriction of early osseous technology to the southwest and southeast of the continent as a manifestation of regional variability in Pleistocene Australian cultures.…”

Spatiotemporal modelling of radiocarbon dates using linear regression does not indicate a vector of demic dispersal associated with the earliest Gravettian assemblages in Europe

“…Many differences have been described between Aurignacian and Gravettian archaeological assemblages, including in lithic techno-typology, osseous technology, personal ornaments, funerary practices and raw material use (e.g. Conard & Moreau 2004;Floss & Kieselbach 2004;Henry-Gambier 2008;Steguweit 2009;Bolus 2010;Borgia et al 2011;Goutas 2016;Goutas & Tejero 2016;Wolf et al 2016;Touzé 2016;Münzel et al 2017), suggesting that the Aurignacian-Gravettian transition may have coincided with profound social and cultural changes. Aurignacian and Gravettian assemblages Figure 1: Locations of sites mentioned in this article.…”

Threading the Weft, Testing the Warp: Population Concepts and the European Upper Paleolithic Chronocultural Framework

“…This should not be seen as a problem. These variances can tell us something about the complexity of social and population processes during the Upper Paleolithic(Vanhaeren and d'Errico 2006;Hromadova 2012; Perlès 2013;Goutas 2016). As shall be further discussed below, the key to managing and understanding this complexity within our chronocultural framework is to consider each aspect of material culture separately and to treat them all as potentially informative of past sociocultural processes.The approach advocated in this chapter focuses on the presence/absence of particular features in assemblages.…”