SOLUTRIAN

EPOCH  , in archaeology, the name given by G. de Mortillet to the second stage of his system of cave-chronology, and that synchronous with the third division of the Quaternary period . It is so called from the Solutre Cave, Macon district, Saone-et-Loire . The period is characterized by two series of chipped flints, one modelled on the laurel-leaf, the other on that of the willow . Those of the first series are artistically chipped upon the two faces and the end, and are readily distinguishable from the flints of the preceding Mousterian epoch . Large thin spear-heads; scrapers with edge not on the side but on the end; flint knives and saws, but all still chipped, not ground or polished; long spear-points, with tang and shoulder on one side only, are also characteristic implements of this epoch . Bone or horn, too, was used . The Solutrian work exhibits a transitory stage of art between the flint implements of the Mousterian and the bone implements of the Madelenian epochs . The fauna includes the horse, reindeer, mammoth, cave lion, rhinoceros, bear and urus . Solutrian " finds " have been also made in the caves of Les Eyzies and Laugerie Haute, and in the Lower Beds of Cresswell Cave (Derbyshire) .