Caves as Typesites

A typesite is the place, where a particular archaeological culture was discovered first. This is a common technique amongst archaeologists: when they find new artifacts, which are important enough to call them a new culture, this culture is named after the place. 150 years ago archaeology started to discover stone age tools in French caves. Soon all over central Europe caves were excavated, and so many cultures which are today well known, were named after the caves. Many of the caves are today show caves, and so we tried to make a little list.

Name	Type	Time	Period	Region	Description	Wikipedia	Typesite
Acheuléen	industry	1,000,000 to 200,000 BP	Lower Palaeolithic	across Africa and much of Asia and Europe	The dominant technology for the vast majority of human history, characterized by distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes.	Acheulean	St. Acheul, France. Gravel pits at the river Somme.
Azilian	industry	around 10,000 BP	terminal Palaeolithic and early Mesolithic	northern Spain and southern France	Azilian points are microliths with rounded retouched backs, crude flat bone harpoons and pebbles with abstract decoration.	Azilian	Grotte du Mas-d'Azil
Magdalénien	culture	18,000 and 10,000 BP	Upper Palaeolithic	western Europe, from Portugal to Poland	"L'Age du Renne" (the age of the reindeer), synonymous with reindeer hunters. Extensive evidence for the hunting of red deer, horse and other large mammals. Characterised by regular blade industries struck from carinated cores.	Magdalenian	Abri la Madelene
Mousterian	industry	300,000 to 30,000 BP	Middle Palaeolithic	all over unglaciated Europe, Near East, and North Africa	Handaxes, racloirs and points, sometimes a Levallois technique or another Prepared-core technique employed.	Mousterian	Abri du Moustier
Sauveterrian	culture	7,000-8,000 BC	Mesolithic	western and central Europe	Geometric microliths and backed points on micro-blades. Wood working tools are notably missing. Evidence for ritual burial.	Sauveterrian	Abris at Sauveterre-la-Lémance (Lot-et-Garonne)
Dzibilchaltun	Maya civilization					Dzibilchaltun	Dzibilchaltún Cenote
Neanderthal	man	230,000 to 29,000 BP	Middle Paleolithic		The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) was a species of the Homo genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia.	Neanderthal	Neanderthal
Cro-Magnon	man	35,000 to 10,000 BP	Upper Paleolithic			Cro-Magnon man	Cro-Magnon, France

An archaeological industry is the name given to a consistent range of assemblages connected with a single product. Industries often specialized on this product and traded it over long distances.
An archaeological culture is a pattern of similar artefacts and features found within a specific area over a limited period of time. It is also called techno-complex to differentiate it from the sociological term culture.

Caves as Typesites

See also