European Kingdoms

Early Southern Europe

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The pre-history of Europe is a long and largely uncertain period in which small windows of opportunity to view events can be gained through archaeology. Masses of material are found each year by archaeologists, and a system was long ago needed to help organise all these findings.

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas. The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see link, right). Archaeological cultures remain the framework for global prehistory.

Europe's earliest cultures which came out of Africa via the Near East are perhaps the easiest to catalogue. These early cultures include transitional ones such as the Bohunician, which covers part of the earliest occupation of modern humans in Europe. Once the ice had retreated and Europe had become a much more hospitable place, human cultures became increasingly regionalised, or at least confined to areas less expansive than the entirety of Europe.

The Magdalenian culture of circa 17,000 to 12,000 BC includes the well-known cave art of Lescaux (in France) and Altamira (in Spain), with the earliest dated sites being in France. Subsequently, cultural complexity appears and increases as human populations increased. What had been a single human culture across Europe eventually divided in two which - at least at first - can be equated to Northern Europe and Southern Europe.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by David Reich (Harvard Medical School), from A Genetic Signal of Central European Celtic Ancestry, David K Faux, from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Settlement of the European North: Possible Linguistic Implications, Christian Carpelan, from The Magdalenian Settlement of Europe, Quaternary International Volumes 272-273 (2012), and from External Link: The Genetic History of Ice Age Europe (Nature 2016).)

Azilian Culture (Epi-Palaeolithic / Upper Mesolithic) (Southern & Central Europe)
c.17,000 - 7500 BC

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

This Epi-Palaeolithic (Late Palaeolithic) culture succeeded the Magdalenian in Spain and southern France. The Magdalenian continued in the north to evolve into more than one regional type, including the Federmesser group of technologies, and the Hamburg and Sauveterrian cultures (which stretched from northern France and into Central Europe).

The Azilian was a much simplified form of the Magdalenian with nowhere near the richness of Magdalenian culture (especially its art). The latter's success seems to have been built on an abundance of food, allowing time for leisure and the development of religion and aesthetics. The Azilian existed in a region and during a period in which resources seem to have been tougher to access. The more time which had to be spent on hunting and gathering, the less there was to spend on creating art.

Discovered by French archaeologist E Piette in 1887-1889, the culture was named after the Mas-d'Azil cave in the department of Ariège in southern France. It was found primarily on the territory of France and the then-'Federal Republic of Germany' (West Germany). The people of this culture formed tribes of hunters (hunting red deer, roe, and wild boar), fishermen, and gatherers. It was characterised by small silicon tools: insets of geometric contours (microliths), flat harpoons from antlers of the red deer, and the so-called Azilian pebbles (small flat river pebbles, mainly of quartzite, painted in conventional patterns with red ochre). More than two hundred such pebbles have been found in the Mas-d'Azil cave. They are considered to be close to the Australian churinga and are believed to have had religious and magical significance.

Two interesting localised cultures emerged during the Azilian, seemingly after about 12,000 BC although dating is for now conjectural. The Montadian and Romanelli cultures were localised in Southern Europe around the edges of France and northern Italy, apparently as parallel evolutions of the Azilian. In time the Azilian itself, weak as it already was, came to be influenced by the Sauveterrian - and then dominated by it. In northern Iberia the Asturian appeared after perhaps a short gap.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Pervobytnoe obshchestvo, P P Efimenko (Third Ed, Kiev, 1953), from Istoriia pervobytnogo obshchestva, V I Ravdonikas (Part1, Leningrad, 1939), from Préhistoire de France, F Bourdier (Paris, 1967), from Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Moravia, Martin Oliva (Moravian Museum, 2005), from Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds, A W R Whittle (Cambridge University Press, 1996), and from The Origins of European Thought, R B Onians (Cambridge University Press, 1988).)

c.6000s BC

Although placed well beyond the end of the Azilian, a find which is dated to the seventh millennium BC is ascribed to that culture (by now dominated and being replaced by the Sauveterrian). The Ofnet Caves on the edge of the Nördlinger Ries in Germany are the remnants of an underground karst system.

A 1908 discovery by R R Schmidt turns up thirty-three human skulls in two dish-shaped pits, described as sitting there 'like eggs in flat baskets'. The larger of the pits contains twenty-seven of the skulls. Each has been arranged so that it faces towards the setting sun before being covered with a thick layer of red ochre. The removal and positioning of the heads is presumed to be linked to religious overtones.

Azilian pebbles have been found in large numbers, and the prevailing theory is that they provided some form of religious and/or magical relevance

Montadian & Romanelli Cultures (Epi-Palaeolithic) (Southern Europe)
c.12,000 - 7000 BC
Incorporating the Valorguian Culture

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The Epi-Palaeolithic (Late Palaeolithic) Azilian culture succeeded the Magdalenian in Spain and southern France, although the Magdalenian continued in Northern Europe. The Azilian was a much simplified form of the Magdalenian with nowhere near the richness of Magdalenian culture (especially its art). Resources seem to have been tougher to access during this period than previously. The more time which had to be spent on hunting and gathering, the less there was to spend on creating art.

A series of interesting Epi-Palaeolithic industries occurred in the Mediterranean area during the Azilian. Their dates are generally conjectural. However, they can generally be positioned with some certainty between the Younger Dryas cold snap (which ended around 9700 BC) and the Preboreal period (which began around 8000 BC), even if their start and finish dates may extend some way on either side of those dates. The most important of them are the Romanelli (and the seemingly associated Valorguian) which emerged in Italy. And then the Montadian which seems to be a development of the Romanelli.

This region and its very localised industries appear to have developed solely from local Palaeolithic traditions without any outside influence. There is little evidence to provide a dating for them, apart from the fact that they have some slight resemblances to Azilian efforts, although these are suspected to be the product of parallel evolution. The Montadian is one of a wider series of cultures (along with the Azilian, Tardenoisian, and Sauveterrian, amongst others) which furnish evidence of the deliberate and organised exploitation of forest resources, including acorns, hazelnuts, wild cattle, boar, fallow deer, red deer, and ibex.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Pervobytnoe obshchestvo, P P Efimenko (Third Ed, Kiev, 1953), from Istoriia pervobytnogo obshchestva, V I Ravdonikas (Part1, Leningrad, 1939), from Préhistoire de France, F Bourdier (Paris, 1967), from Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Moravia, Martin Oliva (Moravian Museum, 2005), from Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds, A W R Whittle (Cambridge University Press, 1996), and from The Origins of European Thought, R B Onians (Cambridge University Press, 1988), and from External Links: Mesolithic Culture of Europe (PDF, Vidya Mitra Integrated E-Content Portal), and The Mesolithic Period in South and Western Britain, Geoffrey John Wainwright (University of London, Faculty of Arts thesis submission, 1961, available to download as a PDF).)

c.8000 - 7100 BC

The Preboreal period sees the climate become significantly warmer in Northern Europe, especially in the Baltics. Birch and pine forests start to spread, and elk, bears, beavers, and various species of water birds migrate into the region from the south.

In Southern Europe, the Montadian and Romanelli and their associated industries fade out by or before about 7000 BC. One indirect successor - albeit confined entirely to Iberia - is the Asturian culture which is now only just getting started.

The Preboreal period is a formative stage of the early Holocene which lasted between 9000-4000 BC, one in which the post-glacial world of Northern Europe was warming to temperatures which were very close to those of the twentieth century

c.2800 - 2000 BC

A shift to drier conditions has been taking place since about 3300 BC. As a result the steppe has been growing and the steppe people have kept on increasing their herds, feeding them by moving them more often.

Around this time the population build-up and changing conditions generates a flood of migration into Central Europe and northern Italy, part of the Yamnaya horizon. It is these West Indo-Europeans who pick up the influence of the originally-Iberian Bell Beaker horizon. They do so enthusiastically, turning it into a true Bell Beaker culture across central, southern, and Western Europe.