Solutrean
adjective · first attested 1872
A limestone crag now better known for white wine names a stone toolmaking tradition.
Of or relating to the Upper Paleolithic culture of France and Spain known for finely worked laurel-leaf flint blades, about 22,000 to 17,000 years ago.
46.2992°N 4.7192°E · Q3437539
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1872
- Part of speech
- adjective
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Rock of Solutré
- In English
Solutrean
Gabriel de Mortillet named the Solutrean in 1872 after the site at the foot of the Rock of Solutré in Saone-et-Loire, where digging from 1866 had turned up an enormous deposit of horse bone along with distinctive flint points. The crag rises straight out of the Pouilly-Fuisse vineyards. The name stays in public circulation largely through the discredited Solutrean hypothesis, which claimed these people reached America along the ice.