H— ANTHROPOLOGY 171 



very closely related. In Central and Eastern Europe the shouldered 

 point stage predominates and is associated with a distinctive decorative 

 art and apparently a great development of the cult of which female 

 statuettes are the expression. I would suggest for these two very closely 

 related levels the names of Lower Gravettian and Upper Gravettian 

 respectively, the label Grimaldian being reserved for the special develop- 

 ment and prolongation of the Upper Gravettian in the Italian Peninsula. 



The theory of an eastern centre of dispersion for the Gravettian is 

 based, of course, on this exceptional development in Central and Eastern 

 Europe. I am influenced also by the fact that the female statuettes, 

 whose close connection with the Upper Gravettian is incontestable, 1 are 

 very abundant in Russia, but occur only sporadically in Western Europe, 

 where they have an unmistakably alien appearance in comparison with 

 the indigenous naturalistic animal art which had already begun to develop 

 in the Aurignacian. 



Assuming an Eastern origin, we cannot regard Central Europe as the 

 centre of dispersion, because we have clear evidence that the Gravettian 

 is there preceded by the Aurignacian proper. In South Russia it is indeed 

 the oldest blade industry so far found, but the geological evidence does 

 not suggest that it is necessarily very early, though it may quite well be 

 contemporary with the Aurignacian of the West. I do not think, however, 

 that the centre of dispersion can lie very much farther to the East, because 

 the lithic industry of Malta, which must be approximately contemporary, 

 is not Gravettian at all, though the presence of statuettes and certain 

 decorative motifs suggests either that Siberia was reached by influences 

 from South Russia or that the particular cult of which female statuettes 

 were the expression came to the Gravettian from the Far East. 



We must now consider by what route an industry ancestral to the 

 Gravettian could have passed into North-east Europe from our 

 hypothetical Chatelperronian centre. We have seen that in Palestine 

 the true Gravettian is absent, and that in southern Kurdistan it probably 

 represents a relatively late migration from Russia. In Palestine, however, 

 the Chatelperronian level which lies at the base of the Upper Palaeolithic 

 sequence already shows signs of evolution towards the Gravettian type, 

 and it is possible that an industry of this character had already penetrated 

 into the neighbourhood of the South Russian plain before the westward 

 moving Aurignacian invasion had reached the Mediterranean coast. 



I need not dwell on the Solutrian episode, which forms the next stage 

 in the French sequence, as this is already well known and understood. 

 The only addition to our knowledge in recent years has been the demon- 

 stration that the Solutrian penetrated farther to the east than was 

 originally supposed from its Hungarian centre. 



With the Magdalenian we reach a stage when migration on a wide 

 scale gives way to local variations of the cultures already in possession. 



1 At Sireuil and Brassempouy female statuettes were apparently associated 

 with the Aurignacian proper, but in neither case is the evidence absolutely 

 conclusive. Should the association be proved, however, these two isolated 

 instances might suggest an early intrusion from an already established Upper 

 Gravettian province in the East. 



