Definition of the Magdalenian
Definición del Magdaleniense
- Date
- 1869-1875 · confidence high
- Place
- Abri de la Madeleine, Tursac, Dordogne, France
- Credited to
- Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy (type site); Gabriel de Mortillet (naming and period definition, 1869)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Lartet and Christy excavated the eponymous site at the Abri de la Madeleine, published posthumously in 1875, identifying a stone and bone tool industry of reindeer hunters they initially called the 'age of the reindeer'; Gabriel de Mortillet gave it the name 'Magdalenian' in 1869 within his prehistoric classification system. It became the last major period of the European Upper Paleolithic.
The type site was excavated in the mid-19th century and published in 1875, but the name 'Magdalenian' within a chronological system was fixed by Gabriel de Mortillet in 1869.
What it led to
- De Mortillet's prehistoric classification system
- Division into six chronological phases (Magdalenian I-VI)
- Decades of archaeological research across Western and Central Europe
Built on
- Earlier excavations of Upper Paleolithic industries