Magdalenian

Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; French: Magdalénien) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a rock shelter (abri) located in the Vézère valley of Tursac in Dordogne, France.

Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy originally termed the period L'âge du renne "the age of the reindeer". They conducted the first archaeological excavation of the type site, publishing in 1875. The Magdalenian is associated with reindeer hunters. Magdalenian sites contain extensive evidence for the hunting of red deer, wild horses, and other megafauna present in Europe toward the end of the Last Glacial Period. The culture was geographically widespread, and later Magdalenian sites stretched from Portugal in the west to Poland in the east, and as far north as France, the Channel Islands, England, and Wales. Besides la Madeleine, the chief stations of the Magdalenian are Les Eyzies, Laugerie-Basse, and Gorges d'Enfer in the Dordogne; Grotte du Placard in Charente and others in Southwest France.

Magdalenian peoples produced a wide variety of art, including figurines and cave paintings. Evidence has been found suggesting that Magdalenian peoples regularly engaged in (probably ritualistic) cannibalism along with producing skull cups.

Genetic studies indicate that the Magdalenian peoples were descended mainly from earlier Western European Cro-Magnon groups like the Gravettians present in Western Europe over 30,000 years ago before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), who had retreated to southwestern Europe during the LGM. Madgalenian peoples were replaced by, or in some areas absorbed by, Epigravettian-related groups of western hunter-gatherers at the end of the Pleistocene.