37 Blades of the Cro-Magnons from Daignac in France

Culture: Western Europe

Period: Magdalenian, Upper Palaeolithic, 18,000-12,000 B.C.

Material: Silex

Dimensions: From 2 to 9 cm long

Price: Sold

Ref: 5242

Provenance: From the French collection of the artist Alcide Teynac. The collection was compiled between 1912 and 1914.

Condition: Throughout intact.

Description: Important collection, compiled between 1912 and 1914, of finely worked out blades and gravers of the Cro-Magnons. The silex tools come from the mil nearby Daignac, a small place in the Département Gironde in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The cross-section of the gravers is diamond-shaped throughout, they were obtained by cutting them from a large stone. The tools were used for scraping, carving, cutting and engraving. Cro-Magnons is the name – based on the European research tradition - for the anatomically modern human, the Homo sapiens. The Cro-Magnon era is considered to be the period from the first evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe, approximately 45,000 years ago to around 12,000 years ago. The tools of this collection date to the Magdalenian, the early period of the Upper Palaeolithic in Central and Western Europe, at the end of the last Ice Age. Magdalenian was named after the cave site La Madeleine in the French Département Dordogne. Almost all objects have handwritten original labels or inscriptions with the name of the location Daignac. The collection is still in its original box.