The Gravettian Culture: Lords of the Mammoth Steppe
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
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In the depths of the ice age in Europe, at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, the Gravettian saw incredible societies of mammoth hunters thriving across Europe.
They lived in caves, rock shelters, and open-air settlements in mammoth bone houses and developed surprisingly complex and sophisticated societies. Their burials at sites like Dolní Věstonice and Sungir could include grave goods like ivory beads in enormous quantities, suggesting the emergence of social inequality.
They were the first people in the world to use ceramics, making small figurines of animals and people. They also made the world-famous Venus figurines in stone, ivory, and moulded from clay. So who were these people? Where did they come from? Where and how did they live? How could they create so much art in the depths of the ice age? And what ultimately happened to them?
This is the awe-inspiring story of the lords of the mammoth steppe; the Gravettians.
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Sources
Palaeolithic Europe: A Demographic and Social Prehistory by Jennifer C. French amzn.to/4dCRRf8
The People of Sunghir by Erik Trinkaus et al amzn.to/3JXhDgo
Growing Up in the Ice Age by April Nowell amzn.to/4aid9vB
Posth, C., Yu, H., Ghalichi, A. et al. Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers. Nature 615, 117-126 (2023)
Bennett, E.A., Parasayan, O., Prat, S. et al. Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea.
Baker, J., Rigaud, S., Pereira, D. et al. Evidence from personal ornaments suggest nine distinct cultural groups between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago in Europe
The Death and Burial of Sunghir 1 - E. Trinkausa and A. P. Buzhilova 2010
The origin of the Gravettian - Janusz K. Kozlowski 2014
The symbolism of breast-shaped beads from Dolní Věstonice - Martina Lázničková-Galetová 2017
Upper Paleolithic ceramic figurines - Pamela B. Vandiver 2022
A Critical Reassessment of Pavlovian Art and Society - Rebecca Farbstein 2013
Identity and fear - burials in the Upper Palaeolithic - Simona Petru 2019
Upper Paleolithic Venus Figurines and Interpretations of Prehistoric Gender Representations - Vandewettering 2015
The Gravettian burials at Grotta Paglicci - Ronchitelli et al 2015
Self-Representation in Upper Paleolithic Female Figurines - LeRoy McDermott 1996
Hunters of the Ice Age: The Biology of Upper Paleolithic People - Holt & Formicola 2008
Venus figurines history: www.stoneageherbalist.com/p/t...
The above links include affiliate links which means we will earn a small commission from your purchases at no additional cost to you which is a way to support the channel.
Thank you
Ancient Europeans for use of artwork: / ancienteuropea1
Dolni Věstonice digital reconstruction: www.behance.net/gallery/26216...
Thank you to Don Hitchcock for his fantastic resources at donsmaps.com/
Video Chapters
00:00 The Gravettians
01:50 MagellanTV
03:00 The First Europeans
05:38 Gravettian Origins
08:50 Gravettian physiques
11:23 Gravettian mobility
14:00 Venus Figurines
18:00 Personal ornaments and culture
19:18 Dolní Věstonice
22:44 The burials at Sungir
25:05 Gravettian social inequality
26:47 The last Gravettians
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Thanks for watching my video. Let me know if you'd like to see any other Paleolithic stuff.
Yea please the ANE CHG the people of the taklamakan dessert (White mummies people) yuzhi in Asia, the yuchitribe part of algonkin creek confederation in East USA, yezidies in iraq, the kalash better India and pakistan
😊😊❤v ĺ⁰😂1😂0😅ppq
Good video, I wish there were more Mammoths in popular fantasy and mammoth herding in fantasy in general.
Ok.. So what language family would the "Gravettian culture " people belong to? Would be part of the Basque language family or something like it ? And if not then what ?
Nobody gives more life to our ancestors than you, Dan. Thank you.
Thank you! That's just what I want to do, appreciate it 🙏
Amazingly good documentaries. Thank you very much.
Well, do you go to a museum? :)
To think they persisted for 10,000 years in that environment.
Damn amazing.
They were there for hundreds of thousands of years.
@@user-xt1de9jr9l No, not nearly that long, no more than 40,000 BP... 😎
@@ronalddunne3413 you’re categorically wrong.
The Goyet study alone looked at UPMH 60 000-30 000 years ago.
They were there for hundreds of thousands of years.
And they likely came from north Eastern Asia. The melting pot for human like primates. Neanderthals, homo erectus and Denisovans all interbred there, likely how Homo sapiens evolved.
@@user-xt1de9jr9l Are you a neanderthal? Because they dominated the region hundreds of thousands of years. Modern humans could barely migrate into europe because of them.
I did NOT expect Gravettian men to be this tall! It definitely caught me by surprise, i had to do a double take to see if i misheard. Excellent video! Please do more of pre-anatolian farmers Europe!
It's probably due to oxygen levels.
And height difference between men and woman was probably due to selection
@@dwijgurram5490 No i don't think so, it's very likely the diet. These people ate all sorts of megafauna meat high on protein and all the other good stuff. Even long after the paleolithic period in Europe, people who lived on a primarily meat based diet (Germanic tribes, Spartans etc) where generally taller than populations that relied mainly on grain and fish (Romans, Athenians etc).
I commented years ago i was injured at work and came across your channel since then mate im glad people have seen and appreciated what research and effort you put into these and your starting to take off. Your passion for history shines through, more power too you pal.
When I see the Venus figurines I see a representation of a woman that has birthed several children. This seems consistent with the belief that fertility is what was being venerated with the figurines. One can only imagine why this was done but it's not hard to imagine that in a world where life was harsh and probably short, the women who brought new life into the world were held in high esteem. Thank you Dan for another excellent presentation of these fascinating ancient cultures.
Yeah, that makes sense. Considering that a girls probably procreated at a much earlier age than is common today and therefore had an even higher mortality rate because of of that =\
The problem with equating obesity with fertility is that it poses a plethora of complications to pregnancy. Furthermore, obesity was extremely rare in the pre-industrial world (even in agricultural societies). Women had to do some hard work too and ofcourse they had to walk large distances according to their nomadic lifestyle
so the figurines were possibly idealized than realistic
@@captainfury497 I'm not equating obesity with fertility. I'm equating the appearance of the Venus figurines with the appearance of women I know in real life that have had multiple children.
@@mydknight357 I don't see how you can possibly equate the appearance of the Venus figurines to contemporary women. Their lifestyles are unbelievably different in that women around centuries ago, most likely were hungry a lot of the time and had very physical, hard work to do.
@@Golightly354 Allow me to explain it to you. It's my 20/20 vision that allows me to make that comparison. I don't see how you can possibly not see those similarities. I'm not comparing lifestyles, I'm comparing physical appearance.
Absolute banger, as always. Paleolithic society vids always fascinate me, since it always seems that their cultures and ways of life persist for far longer periods of time than our cultures tend to in more recent times.
Fantastic video! I have spent a lot of time replicating Gravettian, and Solutrean tools, art, and material culture. It is awesome to see these fascinating people getting some attention.
Videos? Good work
Wow!!
Today, with the population bordering on obese, our models are SKINNY. In the depression when people were lean, the models were plump. Maybe, with an active life full of activity and limited caloric intake, maybe the plump figurines were a response to their conditions.
Ah, so beauty standards were never achievable all throughout history? 😢
@@ninoska.noe. Not never achievable, just challenging
She's ready to give birth and supply milk in the lean times so your grave will have the rites of immortality for generations. That's hot.
Could watch all day
Dan you do such great high quality work, I really appreciate you do all of these narrations yourself and havn't gone down the AI route so many others have. Looking forward to listening to this!
YES!!
>Make fat doll
>Tell Grug "this is your mother"
>Laugh
>Throw away doll
>Thousands of years later:
Thank you for explaining what were humorous pieces of artwork. Modern politically correct college drones are incapable of cogent thought.
I totally agree, the speculation we put on these burials is incredible. It could be a part of something else that decayed for all we know, it could be a joke, it could be a sacred symbol, hell we don't know
Apparently they only had 1 joke they told over and over again
@@paul6925your mom jokes are timeless.
honestly in a nomadic society they could have thought the idea of a fat person who couldnt march well ironic or funny
Bingeing the paleolithic content at the moment. More please.
Thank you very much. Yes perhaps I will.
Fantastic! So good to see 'cave men" looking so stylish! Despite the difficult environment, I think that the Venus figures show that these people valued, and aspired to their best life: beautiful clothes, ornaments, bodies. Their stories, songs and partying must have been amazing too!
Thank you Mr. Davis. Through your presentations I’ve embarrassingly learned more about prehistoric European archaeology from you than from my European Archaeology course in university. That’s not to say I had a bad professor, he was actually very good. But there has been so much more advancement in the field since those days.
Venus figurines were humans' first waifus.
Uwu
lol that’s funny… because it’s true
It was probably a chief’s wife.
They are figurines made by hunters' female mates to remind the hunters of their woman while they were away on long hunts.
@@ottoginafiel5468 they are figures hunters carved of the ideal body type, which could never be achieved because there wasn’t enough food.
These Venus figures are clearly matronly (post pregnancy, mothers). What's fascinating to me is that these figures almost certainly represent individuals that would have existed within the community (everyone today recognizes this body type). The fact that these individuals existed highlights how successful these Paleolithic hunters had to have been. (If we were scraping buy, waiting for someone to invent agriculture. It would have been impossible for these women to exist.)
So the Venus’ could be people’s mothers. Especially if children were promoted into adulthood as preteens. I’m thinking the boys especially would join men’s hunting bands as earlier as they were able and so lined for the mothers as they remember them. Just a thought =]
There is only one problem obesity like that were extremely rare in the pre-industrial world. Especially among hunter gatherers. Women worked hard too so it was not likely they could become obese like that.
furthermore it is hard to believe that women who were built like that would have been able to walk long distances in accordance with the nomadic lifestyle of these people
I think they were earth goddess figurines.
@@slappy8941 I'm sure there's something to that line of reasoning (earth mother). They were clearly modeled/inspired by a body type we're all familiar with.
@@captainfury497 What you say here makes sense, but it seems to me that those who created the "Venus" figurines must have had some knowledge of what an obese woman looks like. The figurines correctly depict typical female fat distribution rather than them having, say, only exaggerated breasts and a swollen belly.
Thanks kindly, Dan, for another spectacular installment!
Televisual feast.
I remember reading about this culture, referenced as a made up name, as a teenager from Jean M. Auel's amazing Earth's Children book series. Your video echoes very well to these memories. Thanks again for all your work!
I alllmost got into those, saw them at the bookstore as a teen
The Venus figurines may have been part of a dowry taken from village to village with potential brides.
Simply superior work, Dan Davis.... Excellent research, and delivery... you painted a very clear image of the progression of humanity. I do take exception with the take of it being such a hard life. People under stress do continue being creative, but they do not make frivolous artifacts, even as they incorporate difficulty into play. ie; "Ring around the rosy, pockets full of possies, ashes, ashes, all fall down" is a kids rhyme about the black plague.
Wikipedia:
"...scholars regard the popular Great Plague explanation, common since the mid-20th century, as baseless."
I love prehistoric societies these people had to endure so many hardships, just think cold winters, hunger, and diseases, but despite everything they survived and adapted, I was amazed at how low their numbers were, just goes to show how harsh was their environment
Mammoth Steppe sounds like a new music genre that i need to get into
That first portrait carving is so cool. And the beads too. Really sounds like they were a society, complex and skilled.
Definitely interested in more ice-age and paleo content. Our beginnings.
Thanks Dan. Love your work.
It’s remarkably hardcore and awesome that Humans were able to adapt and survive past ice age Europe and Siberia. :)
Loved the video!
I really appreciate that stone age and copper/early bronze age societies receive so much attention on this channel.
So the population of one small town, spread across all of Europe. They were harsh times, but not crowded times.
I’m rewatching for the 5th time.. already 😅 I tend to have videos on when I am doing other things .. but between you and the other handful of top quality history creators, I’ll just rewatch and rewatch until I actually get it all..
then 😂 I’ll put it on the playlist for eventual replay.. lol
Absolutely LOVE early prehistoric content.. can’t get enough of it..
Especially really well done interesting stuff like you keep bringing us.. THANK YOU!!
Thank you for your amazing films.❤
Reading a bit about Early European Modern Humans(cro-magnons), supposedly they were the most robust humans ever analysed.
I think neanderthals were more robust than cro-magnons. They were shorter but stockier.
Dan - your channel is a WONDER!!!!
Thanks, Dan, for this well made video. I am a retired physician who acquired and spent more than a decade researching the largest collection of Venus figurines in private hands. I had a website but have allowed it to lapse. Anyone seriously interested can contact me for photos. Their authenticity has been often contested, but as often confirmed by knowledgeable archaeologists, and I have gone through the full gamut of scientific testing techniques. A couple of points of contention with your presentation: Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands are often matriarchal by necessity--the men are off hunting for long periods and the women are left "keeping the home fires burning", chattering away/planning for the clan to keep the wolves at bay, and caring for the young and ill/injured. Also, you did not mention the most important salient feature of Gravettian lifeways: they hunted with the atlatl (Aztec name) spearthrower, which may explain their dominance over the Neanderthal hunters, one of which I have in my collection dated at 15,200yo and wonderfully carved with a reindeer and aurochs. Thanks, again, for your efforts! Greeley Miklashek, MD.
Do you know if your site was ever crawled and saved to the Internet Archive? You can search by url.
Yet another excellent video Dan 🏆👍👍
Greetings to the author, thank you for this material, very good informative video!
@@forestdweller5581 thanks
So happy to see you’re still making excellent videos!
OHHHHH HOW I'VE WAITED FOR IT!! Thank you so much!
Thank you, Subscribed, Liked, and added to Gravettian playlist, great info.
thanks :) as always really well made!!! i truly enjoy your documentaries
Thanks for posting!
Thanks for the Quality content. Love stuff like this.
This was wonderful and fascinating. This channel always delivers.
I enjoy your work so much! Please know how grateful I am for your wonderful videos!
I've been waiting so long for this video. Please do more Upper Paleolithic cultures :)
Thanks Dan Davis, big fan of your channel and looking forward to your novels. I enjoy your narration too.
The stories you tell, the videos you make .. fantastic 👍
Many thanks for a brilliant documentary
Loved it Dan
Thank you !!!!
One of your best Dan, just incredible 👏👏👏
Once again Dan thank you. Your channel is great
Great documentary! Thank you!
I love your vids man, you put a ton of work into them, and I really enjoy just listening to them while I am driving for work.
Dreaming of a day you join forces with crecganford… he has such interesting themes, but his storytelling is not good. You, on the other hand: one of best i can find. Starting on your books soon , cant wait!!!
your channel is great. love your each presentation. :)
You continue to astound me. Great work!
Informative and enjoyable. Gratitude
Love the channel and great work! Oh, man, I LOVE prehistory. I hope you make plenty more content about as many times and cultures as you can! I'll eat it up.
I've never really had much interest in this period of human history until watching you. Great video.
Another fascinating video!!
This was wonderful, thank you.
I agree with you on so many of your topics. Good job and well explained
You always upload such awesome content man. Please keep it up!
What a great video! Well researched and even with all sources! Will definitively read some of them. Thank you very much! This is a real good addendum to my archaeoligical studies!
Such interesting content!
This was my first video of yours that I've seen. I cant believe I'm just now finding this channel. I love learning about such things. I'm no professor or academic scholar of any kind. I'm just a fella thats always been intrigued by our prehistoric ancestors. Learning how people lived in a time before time. I like to think it's possible that one of those sets of bones was a great X (however many generations) grandfather or mother. We all had to come from some survivor of these time periods. Well survive long enough to give birth at least. Anyway I really enjoyed this one and I'll be hitting that subscription button.
More please. That was great 👍
Paleolithic! I was waiting for something on this topic . 🦣Thank you.
Well presented, sir!
Your work speaks for itself . Bravo
Oh hell yeah! I love whenever I see Dan Davis has posted a new documentary
Very informative and enjoyable.
Knew this was gonna be good, excellent video!
Really interesting, so very vividly portrayed lives of the people and great explanations... Discussions of possibilities of discoveries and what might have been. Thank you
My peeps! Thanks, Dan!
Eine sehr gut gemachte Dokumentation. Sehr gut !
First class content, more please 🙂! I learned a lot more on this channel. Gathering the latest science on a subject must be a lot of work. Thank you!
Thanks very much. It's just a lot of reading, really, which I enjoy.
This was excellent!
New to your channel and really enjoyed this video!
This was astoundingly well-researched and incredibly entertaining to watch. Thank you!
Thanks for working with me!
@@DanDavisHistory Our pleasure!
Thank you!
Great vid!
When I view with great interest what is known today, compared to when I took anthropology at university, some 50 years ago, it is amazing how far the discipline has come: During my period of study it was made patently clear that we were not to stray too far from the then held views, equally it was made clear to we erstwhile students, that following, and advocating new trends wouldn't bode well for us passing our exams. Like many of my fellow students we read and discussed the new information being made available, but hid the books and papers from our instructors, and made no reference to it. How they thought the study of man was going to advance, is beyond me. All it achieved was to ensure the then accepted pillars, and notaries of the science had a sinecure, their status upheld. I am very grateful to the likes of yourself, and others, who promote, and publicise new discoveries, and interpretation of the evidence gleaned, now, and that from the past. Only in this way can a science grow, and advance.
Great presentation 👍🏻
Thanks for this and also the mining video wonderful
Finally got to watch it. Very good yet again
Amazing! As always Dan but im grateful. This wonderful prehistoric culture isn't often discussed.
I'm so grateful that you explained the venus figurines. Some academics were quick to pervert and profane something as imortant as what seemed like an obviously pregnant figure to me.
From the moment i saw them, i was certain they were made by women. The craftsmanship and symbolism seemed obvious, perhaps as some sort of fertility rite. But when i found out almost none of the figures were buried with the men, that pretty much confirmed it for me.
Even in my university for a course, a professor asked us to replicate the figures in clay, but oddly requested that we keep our eyes shut as we moulded. Many of the women made the figures without heads!
Great channel
You really brought it to life!
Thank you for these incredible videos sir! As a hunter it would be such an adventure to hunt back then
Excellent presentation
Great stuff
The Venus figures always fascinated me.
I tend to think they were childbirth and health charms.
They are figurines made by hunters' female mates to remind the hunters of their woman while they were away on long hunts.
I think they are actually fetishes from a religious cult of earth goddess worship.
@@ottoginafiel5468what’s your proof?
Now this will be interesting
I enjoy your videos Dan because of your non-factual stance on many instances by others who call themselves professional. When there all just theories. Although some theories seam more factual. So thank for all your hard work. Enjoyed. 💯👍🏻👍🏻
Hey @DanDavisHistory great quality content mate. As an Archaeologist myself specialised in Prehistory I wish we had a content like this back then at the University. Bringing the Gravettian to life is a remarkable feat, because you provide a full 365 degrees picture of it all. Thanks again for this.
Jose
Thanks very much, Jose!
One of my favorite theories regarding the Venus figurines is that they typically represent older women. Rather than illustrating voluptuousness and fertility, they represent a body thickened and sagging from age. This could then be thought to represent a mother (or grandmother) goddess, a tribal elder (being non-Indo-European, we don't know that they were so heavily patriarchal, even if they appear to have been patrilocal), or even a charm-carry an aged figure to channel magic that lets one reach so advanced an age.
Awesome video! One about the Ancient North Eurasians would be dope!
I wonder if the Gravettian culture chose who was buried based on how sudden the death was. Maybe when they had time to say goodbye to a sick person they had different funeral rights. The person knew they where dying and could distribute their 'grave goods' before actually dying. Those who died sudden deaths could not dictate inheritance so it was all seen as still theirs and arranged around them as everyone said goodbye. Maybe there was an element of self sacrifice when you knew it was your time; like an elder feeling they are a burden and leaving the camp to die alone after saying goodbye and gifting their belongings.
Contagious diseases may have killed entire families leaving them all unburied. By the time one person has a near death fever, others are already infected.
Some researchers believe burials were reserved for people who had to be somehow separated from the living or other dead perhaps. Walled off within the earth, somehow. Those who had disabilities, diseases, or suffered a violent death. It's hard to know with what limited information we have.
I’ve wondered that too =] 🌊🏄♂️🪷😊
Re contagious diseases, it is said that they appeared after the domestication of animals (smallpox, tuberculosis...) So people were actually a lot healthier before agriculture and animal breeding. I don't know if there were some contagious diseases before or none at all.
Best history channel eva ))
Yes to more Paleolithic content :)