Cherchez la femme—a Palaeolithic preoccupation

Abstract

The cave paintings in France and Spain are the Magdalenian’s most famous feature. The exhibition, Mille et une femmes de la fin des temps glaciaires (“1001 women from the end of the Ice Age”) explored the proposition that, more than just an archaeological culture, the Magdalenian was inspired, through most of its history, by common symbolism across the Great European Plain all the way from the Pyrenees to Poland; and that, although the landscape varied, this vast region was integrated by common techniques and imagery from 20 000 to 15 000 years ago. The “Lalinde-G¨onnersdorf style” figurines of women, was the suggestion, were particularly characteristic. Assembled from some 20 collections in France, Switzerland, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, the exhibition was shown at the Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies from June to September last year. The compact presentation was in two parts.