Gravettian industry
Quick Summary
The Gravettian industry was a tool tradition of prehistoric humans in Upper Paleolithic Europe, succeeding the Perigordian and contemporary with the Aurignacian. It is characterized by narrow, pointed blades with a straight, blunted back edge. Gravettian people are known for hunting large game, such as horses in western Europe and mammoths in Russia, often using communal strategies like stampedes and pitfalls. They utilized mammoth bones for constructing winter houses and mammoth fat for fuel.12
Gravettian culture also produced crude, fat "Venus" figurines, used red ochre as pigment, and created jewelry from shells, animal teeth, and ivory. This period saw significant cultural advancements, including the development of specialized tools, sewing needles, skin clothing, and early forms of art and complex social organization. The climate during this time varied from cold steppe to Arctic tundra.23
Ask Britannica AI about this topic
Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.
- Capsian industry
…is apparently related to the Gravettian stage of Europe’s Perigordian industry (which dates from about 17,000 years ago), it does not properly belong to the glacial period at all but clearly occurs in Neothermal (postglacial) times. Like its predecessor, the Ibero-Maurusian industry (or Oranian industry), the Capsian was a microlithic…
Read More…is apparently related to the Gravettian stage of Europe’s Perigordian industry (which dates from about 17,000 years ago), it does not properly belong to the glacial period at all but clearly occurs in Neothermal (postglacial) times. Like its predecessor, the Ibero-Maurusian industry (or Oranian industry), the Capsian was a microlithic…
Read More 
Cro-Magnon…have been associated with the Gravettian industry, or Upper Perigordian industry, which is characterized by an abrupt retouching technique that produces tools with flat backs. Cro-Magnon dwellings are most often found in deep caves and in shallow caves formed by rock overhangs, although primitive huts, either lean-tos against rock walls…
Read More…have been associated with the Gravettian industry, or Upper Perigordian industry, which is characterized by an abrupt retouching technique that produces tools with flat backs. Cro-Magnon dwellings are most often found in deep caves and in shallow caves formed by rock overhangs, although primitive huts, either lean-tos against rock walls…
Read More- Perigordian industry
The later stage is called Gravettian and is found in France, Italy, and Russia (there termed Eastern Gravettian). Gravettian people in the west hunted horses to the near exclusion of the reindeer and bison that other contemporaries hunted; in Russia Gravettians concentrated on mammoths. Both appear to have hunted communally,…
Read MoreThe later stage is called Gravettian and is found in France, Italy, and Russia (there termed Eastern Gravettian). Gravettian people in the west hunted horses to the near exclusion of the reindeer and bison that other contemporaries hunted; in Russia Gravettians concentrated on mammoths. Both appear to have hunted communally,…
Read More