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Fig. 169. Typical Solutrean implements of war and chase. After de Mortillet. Pointes en feuille de laurier, or laurel-leaf points, artistically retouched on both surfaces, at both ends, and on both borders; regarded by de Mortillet rather as blades of poniards than as javelin heads. 120. Lozenge-shaped form from the type station of Solutré, Saône-et-Loire. 121. Elongate form found at Solutré. 122. The largest pointe discovered at Solutré. 123. One of the smallest points found at Solutré. 124. Solutrean point from Laugerie Haute, Dordogne. 127. Point from Gargas, Vaucluse. 128. Point of exceptionally fine workmanship. 130. One of eleven very large Solutrean laurel-leaf points found in a cache at Volgu; probably a votive offering, as the flints are too slender to be of any use and one at least shows traces of coloring. All the flints are shown one-quarter actual size, except 129, which is one-half actual size.

The question at once arises, did this industrial advance take place in France or was it an invention brought from the east? On this point Breuil observes[(54)] that in the highest Aurignacian levels in Belgium, in Dordogne, and at Solutré the Solutrean technique becomes faintly apparent either in the 'stem' points (pointes à soie) of Font Robert, La Ferrassie, and Spy or in the double-edged points tending toward the laurel-leaf type of the Solutrean, but that all the other implements remain purely Aurignacian.

Relations and Subdivisions of Solutrean Culture

Lower (Early) Magdalenian.
Prototypes of bone harpoons.
Beginnings of animal sculpture.
Absence of any trace of the laurel-leaf spear heads of Solutrean times.
Upper (Late) Solutrean.
Typical shouldered points (pointes à cran)—elongate flakes worked on one
or both sides and notched. Small laurel-leaf spear heads.
Bone javelin points, awls, and needles, very finely worked. Placard. Lacave.
Middle (High) Solutrean.
Large 'laurel-leaf' spear heads worked on both sides. Climax of Solutrean
flint industry. Placard.
Lower (Proto-) Solutrean.
Primitive 'laurel-leaf' and 'willow-leaf' spear heads, most of them worked
on only one side. Grotte du Trilobite.
Transition from Aurignacian.
Pedunculate spear heads (pointes à soie) of primitive Font Robert type.
Climax of human sculpture.

As to the chief source of Solutrean influence, the same author remarks that, since this culture is entirely wanting in central and southern Spain, in Italy, in Sicily, in Algeria, and in Phœnicia, we should certainly not look to the Mediterranean for its origin but rather to eastern Europe; for in the grottos of Hungary we find a great development of the true Solutrean, while so far the Aurignacian has not been found here, although we do find traces of the earlier transitional stages below the levels of the true laurel-leaf points. We must admit, therefore, that in all probability the Solutrean culture reached Europe from the east and that its source is as mysterious as that of the Aurignacian, which, as we have seen, was of southern and probably of Mediterranean origin. It is not impossible that the evolution of the laurel-leaf point took place in Hungary, for it was certainly not evolved in central or western Europe.

At Předmost, in Moravia, we observe an advanced Aurignacian industry which had adopted a Solutrean fashion in its spear heads. Here the laurel-leaf implements are few, while the implements of bone are abundant; but in the Solutrean stations of Hungary there are no bone implements. As the Solutrean technique comes to perfection the laurel-leaf spear head, so characteristic of the full Solutrean industry, is created and is met with in Poland, in Hungary, in Bavaria, and then in France, where the industry extends southward to the west and east of the central plateau. In France it appears quite suddenly in the Grotte du Trilobite (Yonne), and also in Dordogne and Ardèche, where the Proto-Solutrean types show marked impoverishment, both in the variety and in the execution of most of the flint implements, the only exception being the flattened spear heads, pointes à face plane, which show a regular Solutrean retouch, beautiful but monotonous. Laurel-leaf points discovered at Crouzade, Gourdan, and Montfort denote the presence of the true Solutrean culture, but this culture does not approach the stations in the neighborhood of Brassempouy. Toward the north the grotto of Spy, in Belgium, affords examples of Proto-Solutrean types, which have also been traced in several British caverns, but it is not certain that true Solutrean implements are found in Britain.

In Picard a Proto-Solutrean layer has been found, but no laurel-leaf points. In the type station of Solutré in southeastern France Breuil discovered two Solutrean layers, quite different from each other: one rich in bone implements and graving-tools, with small flint laurel leaves retouched on only one face; the other poor in bone implements but with large laurel-leaf spear heads.

The Solutrean culture never penetrated to the south of the great barrier of the Pyrenees, but, passing through the Vézère valley, in Dordogne, it spread along the western coast to the northern slopes of the Cantabrian Mountains into the province of Santander, Spain. Here the laurel-leaf points of the middle Solutrean are found at Castillo, while the shouldered points, pointes à cran, typical of the later Solutrean, are found at Altamira, together with bone implements. None the less, it should be noticed that in the southwest of Europe the earlier phases of the Solutrean are characterized by a decrease in the use of bone, which, however, increases again in the upper levels.