The Red "Lady" of Paviland is an Upper Paleolithic partial male skeleton dyed in red ochre and buried in Wales 33,000 BP. The bones were discovered in 1823 by William Buckland in an archaeological dig at Goat's Hole Cave which is a limestone cave between Port Eynon and Rhossili on the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea in south Wales. Buckland believed the skeleton was a Roman era female. Later, William Solace examined Goat's Cave Paviland in 1912. There, Solace found flint arrow heads and tools and correctly concluded that the skeleton was in fact a male hunter-gatherer or warrior during the last Ice Age. Over the last 100 years, more advanced dating procedures have shifted the age from the Mesolithic period to the Palaeolithic era of the last Ice Age.
Cro-Magnon is an Aurignacian site, located in a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, a hamlet in the commune of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, southwestern France.
The Aurignacian is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian.
The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by c. 22,000 BP, close to the Last Glacial Maximum, although some elements lasted until c. 17,000 BP. In Spain and France, it was succeeded by the Solutrean, and developed into or continued as the Epigravettian in Italy, the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia.
The Dnieper–Donets culture complex (DDCC) was a Mesolithic and later Neolithic culture which flourished north of the Black Sea ca. 5000-4200 BC. It has many parallels with the Samara culture, and was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture.
Dolní Věstonice is an Upper Paleolithic archaeological site near the village of Dolní Věstonice in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic, at the base of Mount Děvín, 550 metres (1,800 ft). It dates to approximately 26,000 BP, as supported by radiocarbon dating. The site is unique in that it has been a particularly abundant source of prehistoric artifacts dating from the Gravettian period, which spanned roughly from 27,000 to 20,000 BC. In addition to the abundance of art, this site also includes carved representations of men, women, and animals, along with personal ornaments, human burials and enigmatic engravings.
Lagar Velho is a rock shelter in the Lapedo valley, a limestone canyon 13 km from the centre of Leiria, in the municipality of Leiria, in central Portugal. The site is known for the discovery of a 24,000-year-old Cro-Magnon child, later referred to as the Lapedo child.
Sungir is an Upper Paleolithic archaeological site in Russia and one of the earliest records of modern Homo sapiens in Eurasia. It is situated about 200 kilometers (120 mi) east of Moscow, on the outskirts of Vladimir, near the Klyazma River. It is dated by calibrated carbon analysis to between 32,050 and 28,550 BCE. Additional pollen finds suggest the relative warm spell of the "Greenland interstadial (GI) 5" between the 30,500 and 30,000 BCE as most probable dates.
Haplogroup R1b (R-M343), previously known as Hg1 and Eu18, is a human Y-chromosome haplogroup.
The Gaudo Culture is an Eneolithic culture from Southern Italy, primarily in the region of Campania, active at the end of the 4th millennium BC, whose typesite necropolis is located near Paestum, not far from the mouth of the river Sele. Its name comes from the Spina-Gaudo necropolis.
The Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in France since 1979. It specifically lists 15 prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley in the Dordogne department, mostly in and around Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, which has been called the "Capital of Prehistory". This valley is exceptionally rich in prehistoric sites, with more than 150 known sites including 25 decorated caves, and has played an essential role in the study of the Paleolithic era and its art. Three of the sites are the namesakes for prehistoric periods; the Micoquien, Mousterian, and Magdalenian. Furthermore, the Cro-Magnon rock shelter gave its name to the Cro-Magnon, the generic name for the European early modern humans. Many of the sites were discovered or first recognised as significant and scientifically explored by the archaeologists Henri Breuil and Denis Peyrony in the early twentieth century, while Lascaux, which has the most exceptional rock art of these, was discovered in 1940.
Cro-Magnons or European early modern humans (EEMH) were the first early modern humans to settle in Europe, migrating from western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They interacted and interbred with the indigenous Neanderthals of Europe and Western Asia, who went extinct 40,000 to 35,000 years ago. The first wave of modern humans in Europe left no genetic legacy to modern Europeans; however, from 37,000 years ago a second wave succeeded in forming a single founder population, from which all subsequent Cro-Magnons descended and which contributes ancestry to present-day Europeans. Cro-Magnons produced Upper Palaeolithic cultures, the first major one being the Aurignacian, which was succeeded by the Gravettian by 30,000 years ago. The Gravettian split into the Epi-Gravettian in the east and Solutrean in the west, due to major climatic degradation during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), peaking 21,000 years ago. As Europe warmed, the Solutrean evolved into the Magdalenian by 20,000 years ago, and these peoples recolonised Europe. The Magdalenian and Epi-Gravettian gave way to Mesolithic cultures as big game animals were dying out and the Last Glacial Period drew to a close.
Kendrick's Cave on the Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales, was the site of important archaeological finds by Thomas Kendrick in 1880. The site is a small natural cavern on the south of the Great Orme Head, a limestone massif on the seaward side of Llandudno.
Cathole Cave, Cat Hole Cave or Cathole Rock Cave, is a cave near Parc Cwm long cairn at Parc le Breos, on the Gower Peninsula, Wales. It is a steep limestone outcrop, about 200 yards (180 m) north of the cromlech along the Parc le Breos Cwm valley and near the top of the gorge, about 50 feet (15 m) from the valley floor. The cave is a deep triangular fissure penetrating the hillside and narrowing towards the top. It has two entrances, with a natural platform outside the larger of the two. It is about seven 1⁄2 miles (12 km) west south–west of Swansea, Wales, in what is now known as Coed y Parc Cwm at Parc le Breos, on the Gower Peninsula.
The Epigravettian was one of the last archaeological industries and cultures of the European Upper Paleolithic. It emerged after the Last Glacial Maximum around ~21,000 cal. BP or 19,050 BC, and is considered to be a cultural derivative of the Gravettian culture. Initially named Tardigravettian in 1964 by Georges Laplace in reference to several lithic industries found in Italy, it was later renamed in order to better emphasize its independent character.
The abri de Cap Blanc is a prehistoric limestone rock shelter with Magdalenian animal sculptures. It is in the Marquay commune on the right bank of the Beune River, a few kilometers west of Eyzies-de-Tayac, in Dordogne.
The Romito cave is a natural limestone cave in the Lao Valley of Pollino National Park, near the town of Papasidero in Calabria, Italy. Stratigraphic record of the first excavation confirmed prolonged paleo-human occupation during the Upper Paleolithic from 17,000 years ago and the Neolithic from 6,400 years ago. A single, but exquisite piece of Upper Paleolithic parietal rock engraving was documented. Several burial sites of varying age were initially discovered. Irregularly recurring sessions have led to additional finds, which suggests future excavation work. Notable is the amount of accumulated data that has revealed deeper understanding of prehistoric daily life, the remarkable quality of the rock carvings and the burial named Romito 2, who exhibits features of pathological skeletal conditions (dwarfism).
The Zvejnieki burial ground is an archaeological site consisting of a large Stone Age cemetery with over 400 burials and associated grave goods. It is located along a drumlin on the northern shore of Lake Burtnieks in northern Latvia.
Grotte du Bichon is a karstic cave in the Swiss Jura, overlooking the river Doubs at an altitude of 846 m, some 5 km north of La Chaux-de-Fonds. It is the site of the discovery of the skeleton of a hunter-gatherer of the Azilian, dubbed "Bichon man", a young male about 20 to 23 years old, carbon dated to 13,770–13,560 years ago. The skeleton was discovered in 1956, about 15 m from the cave entrance, intermingled with the bones of a female brown bear, nine flint arrowheads and traces of charcoal. In 1991, flint chips were found embedded in the bear's third vertebra, without indication of healing, suggesting the interpretation that the bear was wounded by arrows, retreated into the cave, and was pursued by the hunter, who made a fire to fumigate the bear from the cave, but was killed by the dying animal.
In archaeogenetics, the term Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), West European Hunter-Gatherer, Western European Hunter-Gatherer, Villabruna cluster, or Oberkassel cluster is the name given to a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans, representing descent from a population of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who scattered over Western, Southern and Central Europe, from the British Isles in the west to the Carpathians in the east, following the retreat of the ice sheet of the Last Glacial Maximum.
