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Solutrian Epoch

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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In archaeology, the name given by G. de Mortillet to the second stage of his system of cave-chronology, and that synchronous with the third division of the Quaternary period. It is so called from the Solutre Cave, Macon district, Shone-et-Loire. The period is characterized by two series of chipped flints, one modelled on the laurel-leaf, the other on that of the willow. Those of the first series are artistically chipped upon the two faces and the end, and are readily distinguishable from the flints of the preceding Mousterian epoch. Large thin spear-heads; scrapers with edge not on the side but on the end; flint knives and saws, but all still chipped, not ground or polished; long spear-points, with tang and shoulder on one side only, are also characteristic implements of this epoch. Bone or horn, too, was used. The Solutrian work exhibits a transitory stage of art between the flint implements of the Mousterian and the bone implements of the Madelenian epochs. The fauna includes the horse, reindeer, mammoth, cave lion, rhinoceros, bear and urus. Solutrian "finds" have been also made in the caves of Les Eyzies and Laugerie Haute, and in the Lower Beds of Cresswell Cave (Derbyshire).