The Gravettian Culture: Lords of the Mammoth Steppe
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 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.
they lived there for thousands of generations. For them it was normal, it was their whole life. And they were probably happier than you today
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.
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!!
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.
Could watch all day
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.
If everyone is beautiful, what is beauty then?
@@braydenleis4735 In the eye of the beholder
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.
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.
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.
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!
Thanks kindly, Dan, for another spectacular installment!
Televisual feast.
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.
That first portrait carving is so cool. And the beads too. Really sounds like they were a society, complex and skilled.
Loved the video!
I really appreciate that stone age and copper/early bronze age societies receive so much attention on this channel.
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
i am czech and Mr Burian was the artist that painted people from Dolni Vestonice, and its really Amazing. When I was small, I read many Books that were fiction, but these books were telling fascinating stories for us children about life in this era. I still have one book and illustrated by Burian, it holds a special memory. I wonder if I still have dna from these people...who knows...I tested my sons dna and its mainly eastern europian, then balkans, baltic and surprisingly english and italian❤ what a mix
OHHHHH HOW I'VE WAITED FOR IT!! Thank you so much!
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."
Yet another excellent video Dan 🏆👍👍
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
Definitely interested in more ice-age and paleo content. Our beginnings.
Thanks Dan. Love your work.
So happy to see you’re still making excellent videos!
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!!
Mammoth Steppe sounds like a new music genre that i need to get into
The Venus figurines may have been part of a dowry taken from village to village with potential brides.
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.
Thanks for the Quality content. Love stuff like this.
Thank you for your amazing films.❤
It’s remarkably hardcore and awesome that Humans were able to adapt and survive past ice age Europe and Siberia. :)
This was wonderful and fascinating. This channel always delivers.
I've been waiting so long for this video. Please do more Upper Paleolithic cultures :)
Thanks for posting!
So the population of one small town, spread across all of Europe. They were harsh times, but not crowded times.
Eine sehr gut gemachte Dokumentation. Sehr gut !
Dan - your channel is a WONDER!!!!
The stories you tell, the videos you make .. fantastic 👍
thanks :) as always really well made!!! i truly enjoy your documentaries
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.
Many thanks for a brilliant documentary
Great documentary! Thank you!
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?
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.
Thanks Dan Davis, big fan of your channel and looking forward to your novels. I enjoy your narration too.
I've never really had much interest in this period of human history until watching you. Great video.
I enjoy your work so much! Please know how grateful I am for your wonderful videos!
Thank you, Subscribed, Liked, and added to Gravettian playlist, great info.
This was astoundingly well-researched and incredibly entertaining to watch. Thank you!
Thanks for working with me!
@@DanDavisHistory Our pleasure!
You always upload such awesome content man. Please keep it up!
Informative and enjoyable. Gratitude
Greetings to the author, thank you for this material, very good informative video!
@@forestdweller5581 thanks
Loved it Dan
Thank you !!!!
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!!!
One of your best Dan, just incredible 👏👏👏
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.
Another fascinating video!!
Once again Dan thank you. Your channel is great
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.
You continue to astound me. Great work!
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.
Such interesting content!
This video is a masterpiece - it captures the essence of the topic perfectly.
your channel is great. love your each presentation. :)
This was wonderful, thank you.
This video is great!
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!
That man could be the extremely attractive ancestor of Jason Momoa. I can’t wait to watch!
@@HedonisticPuritan-mp6xv please don’t spoil it for me. 😆
@@UATU.
Leather, campfire smoke, sunbaked grass, moss, and pine. 🫠🫠🫠
@@karmaalstad5588 Yes!
@@UATU. Your "yes!" reply was shadowbanned. It doesn't show up in the thread, but its listed as one of your posts on this channel when your avatar is tapped. YT cens0rsh1p in overdrive worse than twenty-twenty because Iz-ree-yill is about to invayde Raafaah.
@UATU. Your "yes!" reply was shad0wbann3d. It doesn't show up in the thread, but its listed as one of your posts when your avatar is tapped. YT cens0rsh1p in overdrive worse than twenty-twenty because Iz-ree-yill is about to invayde Raafaah.
Thank you!
Well presented, sir!
More please. That was great 👍
Oh hell yeah! I love whenever I see Dan Davis has posted a new documentary
Very informative and enjoyable.
New to your channel and really enjoyed this video!
I agree with you on so many of your topics. Good job and well explained
This was excellent!
Your work speaks for itself . Bravo
My peeps! Thanks, Dan!
Great presentation 👍🏻
Great vid!
Excellent presentation
Paleolithic! I was waiting for something on this topic . 🦣Thank you.
Finally got to watch it. Very good yet again
Yes to more Paleolithic content :)
You really brought it to life!
Now this will be interesting
Great stuff
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.
Knew this was gonna be good, excellent video!
Great channel
Arts, crafts and possibly religious beliefs and rituals I believe are the result of the human mind that evolved to solve complex survival problems moving to the north where ample game and long winters necessitated a way to keep the overly active human mind from imploding.
Our ancestors never cease to amaze me. I did not realize that many Venus have been unearthed. And the different subcultures of the Gravettian. Im just an excited history nerd. And I thank you for the awesome content.
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.
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
hi just joined have read your books a few years ago really enjoyed them
Thanks for this and also the mining video wonderful