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Solutrean is an advanced flint tool making style. Believed to have originated in Spain. The Solutrean has been found in modern-day France, Portugal and Spain.

The Rock of Solutré site was discovered in 1866 by the French geologist and paleontologist Henry Testot-Ferry

Geographical Western Europe
Upper Paleolithic Dates c. 22,000 – c.17,000 BP
Preceded by Gravettian; Followed by Magdalenian

The industry was named by Gabriel de Mortillet (1)

Finds include tools, ornamental beads, and bone pins; as well as, prehistoric art and oil lanterns

Tool making techniques were more advanced
There methods worked small delicate slivers of flint. And, some bone and antler as well. To make light projectiles, even elaborate barbed and tanged arrowheads. These took making methods had not yet been seen before. Long, thin spear heads; knives and saws were all characteristic of the Solutrean point industry.

Megafauna finds include horse, reindeer, mammoth, cave lion, wholly rhinosauros, cave bear and auroch. (2)

Physical characteristics
It has been said Solutrean remains were a “slightly more gracile type” than Gravettians. Males were still tall, some almost 180cm.

Scientists challenge the link between Solutrean and Clovis
It is a challenge though. There are gaps in time. As well as, lack of evidence and difficulty in seafaring. (3)(4)

Here’s an examples. DNA of a male infant, from 12,500 year old deposit in Montana has been sequenced
“Anzick-1”. He was found buried close to numerous clovis artifacts. When analyzed. Comparisons showed greater relations to Siberian sites, like Malta’ Buret; Kennewick man and Beringia. (5)

Most archaeologists and geneticists reject the Solutrean to clovis link. In favor of the more widely accepted theory that people migrated to the western hemisphere from Siberia across Beringia, the land bridge that once connected Asia and North America

Ongoing research and discoveries continue to shape our understanding of this complex history. Check them out with some greater neolithic architecture today.

Cite: 1) One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). “Solutrian Epoch”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Pg. 377

2) Yravedra, José; Julien, Marie-Anne; Alcaraz-Castaño, Manuel; Estaca-Gómez, Verónica; Alcolea-González, Javier; de Balbín-Behrmann, Rodrigo; Lécuyer, Christophe; Marcel, Claude Hillaire; Burke, Ariane (15 May 2016). “Not so deserted…paleoecology and human subsistencein Central Iberia (Guadalajara, Spain) around the Last Glacial Maximum” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116300907). Quaternary Science Reviews. 140: 21–38.doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.03.021 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.quascirev.2016.03.021.ISSN) 0277-3791 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0277-3791)

3) Straus, L.G. (April 2000). “Solutrean settlement of North America? A review of reality”. American Antiquity. 65 (2): 219–226. doi:10.2307/2694056 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2694056). JSTOR 2694056 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2694056). S2CID 162349551 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:162349551).

4) Westley, Kieran and Justin Dix (2008). “The Solutrean Atlantic Hypothesis: A View from the Ocean”. Journal of the North Atlantic. 1: 85–98. doi:10.3721/J080527 (https://doi.org/10.3721%2FJ080527). S2CID 130294767 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:130294767)

5) Rasmussen M, Anzick SL, et al. (2014). “The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4878442). Nature. 506 (7487): 225–229. Bibcode:2014Natur.506..225R (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.506..225R). doi:10.1038/nature13025 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnature13025)
. PMC 4878442 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4878442). PMID 24522598 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24522598)

Bibliography: Heinrich, Hartmut (1 March 1988). “Origin and consequences of cyclic ice rafting in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean during the past 130,000 years” (https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2F0033-5894%2888%2990057-9). Quaternary Research. 29 (2): 142–152. Bibcode:1988QuRes..29..142H (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988QuRes..29..142H). doi:10.1016/0033-5894(88)90057-9 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0033-5894%2888%2990057-9). ISSN 0033-5894 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0033-5894). S2CID 129842509 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:129842509).

“Ancient American’s genome mapped” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scienceenvironment-26172174). BBC News. 14 February 2014.

Trinkaus, Erik (July 2001). “Upper Paleolithic human remains from the Gruta do Caldeirão, Tomar, Portugal” (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/archanth/staff/zilhao/rpa2001.pdf) (PDF). Portuguese Magazine of Archaeology. 4: 1 – via bristol.ac.uk

Bradley, Bruce; Stanford, Dennis (2004). “The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: a possible Paleolithic route to the New World” (https://web.archive.org/web/20130320033824/http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20%26%20Stanfor
d%202004.pdf) (PDF). World Archaeology. 36 (4): 459–478. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.694.6801 (http
s://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.694.6801).
doi:10.1080/0043824042000303656 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F0043824042000303656).
S2CID 161534521 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:161534521). Archived from the original (http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20%26%20Stanford%202004.pdf) (PDF) on 20 March 2013

Mann, Charles C. (Nov 2013), “The Clovis Point and the Discovery of America’s First Culture,” Smithsonian Magazine, (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-clovis-point-and-the-discovery-of-americas-first-culture-3825828/)