Wikipedia
thumb|right|Burins of the Gravettian culture. The Gravettian tool-making culture was a specific archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic era prevalent before the last glacial maximum. It is named after the site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France where its characteristic tools were first found and studied. The earliest signs of the culture were found at Kozarnika, Bulgaria. Authorities give slightly different dates for this culture. Brian M. Fagan suggests it lasted from around 27,000 to 16,000 BCE while Richard Klein suggests between 26,000 and 20,000 BCE. Where found, it succeeded the artifacts datable to the Aurignacian culture.
In August 2013, Romanian archaeologists found a 20,000-year-old Gravettian pendant at the Paleolithic site of Poiana Ciresului (English: 'Cherry Glade'), near Piatra Neamț, in eastern Romania. The newly discovered objects will be included in the Paleolithic artifacts collection of the Târgoviște History Museum, in the new section of human evolution. The department will open at "Stelea" Galleries with the support of the Dâmboviţa County Council.
The diagnostic characteristic artifacts of the industry are small pointed restruck blade with a blunt but straight back, a carving tool known as a burin.
Artistic achievements of the Gravettian cultural stage include hundreds of Venus figurines, which are widely distributed in Europe. The predecessor culture was linked to similar figurines and carvings.
Usage examples of "gravettian".
The pregnant female figurines described by the Arab are highly suggestive of the prehistoric carvings and figurines to be found at the Aurignacian industry sites in France and of the Gravettian finds in Willendorf, Austria, Level 9.
Both Aurignacian and Gravettian cultural levels are associated with essentially modern man, and not Neanderthal Man.