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The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Cro-Magnon (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran and the Ahmarian form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of Homo sapiens out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian.
The Proto-Aurignacian and the Early Aurignacian stages are dated between about 43,000 and 37,000 years ago. The Aurignacian proper lasted from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. A Late Aurignacian phase transitional with the Gravettian dates to about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago.. The type site is the Cave of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, south-west France. The main preceding period is the Mousterian of the Neanderthals.
One of the oldest examples of figurative art, the Venus of Hohle Fels, comes from the Aurignacian or Proto-Gravettian and is dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago (though earlier figurative art may now be known, such as at the Lubang Jeriji Saléh site in Indonesia). It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at Schelklingen in Baden-Württemberg in western Germany. The German Lion-man figure is given a similar date range.
A Levantine Aurignacian culture is known from the Levant, with a type of blade technology very similar to the European Aurignacian, following chronologically the Emiran and Ahmarian in the same area of the Near East, and also closely related to them. The Levantine Aurignacian may have preceded European Aurignacian, but there is a possibility that the Levantine Aurignacian was rather the result of reverse influence from the European Aurignacian; this remains unsettled.
The Aurignacian tool industry is characterized by worked bone or antler points with grooves cut in the bottom. Their flint tools include fine blades and bladelets struck from prepared Lithic core rather than using crude lithic flake. The people of this culture also produced some of the earliest known cave art, such as the animal engravings at Trois Freres and the paintings at Chauvet cave in southern France. They also made , , and ivory beads, as well as three-dimensional figurines. Perforated rods, thought to be spear throwers or shaft wrenches, also are found at their sites.
Many 35,000-year-old animal figurines were discovered in the Vogelherd Cave in Germany. Finds from the Vogelherd cave One of the horses, amongst six tiny mammoth and horse ivory figures found previously at Vogelherd, was sculpted as skillfully as any piece found throughout the Upper Paleolithic. The production of ivory beads for body ornamentation was also important during the Aurignacian. The famous paintings in Chauvet cave date from this period.
Typical statuettes consist of women that are called Venus figurines. They emphasize the hips, breasts, and other body parts associated with fertility. Feet and arms are lacking or minimized. One of the most ancient figurines is the Venus of Hohle Fels, discovered in 2008 in the Hohle Fels in Germany. The figurine has been dated to 35,000 years ago and is the earliest known, undisputed example of a depiction of a human being in prehistoric art. The Lion-man, found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave of Germany's Swabian Alb and dated to 40,000 years ago, is the oldest known anthropomorphic animal figurine in the world.
Aurignacian finds include bone flutes. The oldest undisputed musical instrument was the Hohle Fels Flute discovered in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany's Swabian Alb in 2008. The flute is made from a vulture's wing bone perforated with five finger holes, and dates to approximately 35,000-40,000 years ago. A flute was also found at the Abri Blanchard in southwestern France.
[[Image:Sagaie base fendue.jpg|A bone point]][[Image:Grattoir à museau plat sur lame LARTET.jpg|A scraper from [[Aurignac]] (France)]][[Image:Lames aurignaciennes.jpg|Aurignacian blades]][[Image:Pointe à dos MHNT.PRE.2009.0.227.4 (2).jpg|Dufour bladelet]][[File:Aurignacian Culture Bone Tools, Hayonim Cave, 30000 BP.jpg|Bone tools, [[Hayonim Cave]], 30000 BP.]][[File:Aurignacien - Feuersteingeräte. Fundstücke aus der Göpfelsteinhöhle in Veringenstadt.jpg|Aurignacian [[microlith]]s]]
A 2005 study estimated the population of Upper Palaeolithic Europe from 40 to 30 thousand years ago was 1,738–28,359 (average 4,424).
At least three robust, but typically anatomically modern, individuals from the Peștera cu Oase cave in Romania, were dated directly from the bones to ca. 35,000–36,000 Before Present. Although not associated directly with archaeological material, these finds are within the chronological and geographical range of the Early Aurignacian in southeastern Europe. On genetic evidence it has been argued that both Aurignacian and the Dabba culture of North Africa came from an earlier big game hunting Levantine Aurignacian culture of the Levant., "Sequencing of 81 entire human mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) belonging to haplogroups M1 and U6 reveals that these predominantly North African clades arose in southwestern Asia and moved together to Africa about 40,000 to 45,000 years ago. Their arrival temporally overlaps with the event(s) that led to the peopling of Europe by modern humans and was most likely the result of the same change in climate conditions that allowed humans to enter the Levant, opening the way to the colonization of both Europe and North Africa. Thus, the early Upper Palaeolithic population(s) carrying M1 and U6 did not return to Africa along the southern coastal route of the "out of Africa" exit, but from the Mediterranean area; and the North African Dabban and European Aurignacian industries derived from a common Levantine source."
The Aurignacian material culture is associated with the expansion of "early West Eurasians" during the Upper Paleolithic (UP), replacing or merging with previous Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) cultures to which possibly relates the European Châtelperronian. Evidence for at least some IUP legacy among later UP Europeans is the presence of Ancient East Eurasian ancestry (c. 17–23%) among the GoyetQ116-1 specimen, possibly represented by the preceding Bacho Kiro cave specimen, who, together with the Oase specimens, are closer to ancient and modern East Eurasian populations. The 38kya Kostenki-14 specimen from eastern Europe did not display evidence for IUP-affilated admixture.
A 2023 study found that the Aurignacians are closely related to the , and later . Gravettian-producing peoples belonged to two genetically distinct clusters. Fournol in the west (France and Spain) and Věstonice in the east (Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Italy), both tracing their descent from producers of the earlier Aurignacian culture. The Aurignacian, Gravettian, and Solutrean cultures would merge and give rise to the Magdalenian culture. The genes of seven Magdalenians, the El Miron Cluster in Iberia, showed a close relationship to the Aurignacian population that lived in northern Europe some 20,000 years earlier. The analyses suggested that 70-80% of the ancestry of these individuals was from the population represented by Goyet Q116-1, associated with the Aurignacian culture.
The Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, became subsequently absorbed by the Epigravettian wave from Western Asia (Anatolia). In a genetic study published in Nature in March 2023, the authors found that the ancestors of the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs) were populations associated with the Epigravettian culture, which largely replaced populations associated with the Magdalenian culture about 14,000 years ago, and which were more closely related to ancient and modern peoples in the Middle East and the Caucasus than earlier European .
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