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50-474: The Swimming Reindeer is a 13,000-year-old Magdalenian sculpture of two swimming reindeer conserved in the British Museum . The sculpture was made in what is now modern-day France by an unknown sculptor who carved the artwork from the tip of a mammoth tusk . The sculpture was found in two pieces in 1866, but it was not until 1904 that Abbé Henri Breuil realised that the two pieces fit together to form

100-569: A director of the London Joint-Stock Bank . He was still a board member of the bank at the end of his life, despite other activities. Henry contributed to the success of the family firm, known as W. M. Christy & Sons Ltd. once his father took it over. Samples of textiles he brought home from the Ottoman Empire provided the idea for looped cotton towelling , taken up by his brother Richard, and amenable to mechanical manufacture with

150-538: A form of funerary endocannibalism , where upon the death of a member of the community, they were ritually dismembered and consumed by other members of the group, with their skulls being used to create skull cups. At other Magdalenian sites primary burial with no evidence of cannibalism is observed, with a handful of sites showing alternating evidence of cannibalism and primary burial at different occupation layers. At sites with primary burial, genetic analysis of these individuals indicate that they are more closely related to

200-404: A mammoth engraved on a fragment of its own ivory; a dagger of reindeer antler, with a handle in the form of a reindeer; a cave-bear cut on a flat piece of schist ; a seal on a bear's tooth; a fish drawn on a reindeer antler; and a complete picture, also on reindeer antler, showing horses, an aurochs , trees, and a snake biting a man's leg. The man is naked, which, together with the snake, suggests

250-483: A microlithic component (particularly the distinctive denticulated microliths ), and the later phases by the presence of uniserial (phase   5) and biserial 'harpoons' (phase   6) made of bone, antler and ivory. Debate continues about the nature of the earliest Magdalenian assemblages, and it remains questionable whether the Badegoulian culture is the earliest phase of Magdalenian culture. Similarly, finds from

300-698: A relatively dark skin tone compared to modern Europeans. A 2023 study proposed that relative to earlier Western European Cro-Magnon related groups like Goyet Q116-1-related Aurignacian and the Western Gravettian associated Fournol cluster, the Goyet-Q2-related Magdalenians appear to have carried significant (~30% ancestry) from the Villabruna cluster (thought to be of southeastern European origin, and sharing affinities to West Asian peoples not found in earlier European hunter-gatherers) associated with

350-415: A rock shelter of Bruniquel . The finds took the name of the rock shelter : "abri Montastruc" (Montastruc rock shelter). The hill was estimated to be 98 feet (30 m) high, and the artefacts were found beneath an overhang that extended for about 46 feet (14 m) along the river and enclosed an area of 298 square yards (249 m). De l'Isle had to dig through 7 metres (23 ft) of material to get to

400-636: A single artwork of two reindeer swimming nose-to-tail. The pieces of the sculpture were discovered by a French engineer, Peccadeau de l’Isle, in 1866 while he was trying to find evidence of early man on the banks of the River Aveyron , although contemporary accounts attributed the find to Victor Brun, a local antiquarian. At the time, de l'Isle was employed in the construction of a railway line from Montauban to Rodez , and while digging for artefacts in his spare time he found some prehistoric flint tools and several examples of late Ice Age prehistoric art in

450-453: A small party of geologists to examine some caves which had recently been discovered in Belgium, near Dinant . While at work he caught a severe cold. A subsequent journey with M. and Mme. Lartet to La Palisse brought on inflammation of the lungs, of which he died on 4 May 1865. By his will, Christy bequeathed his collections of modern objects to the nation; his archaeological collection went to

500-478: A technique devised by an employee, Samuel Holt . Christy also innovated with woven silk rather than beaver for the manufacture of top hats . Christy was a philanthropist, active in the Great Famine and other causes. With other Quakers Christy took the approach of buying seeds for other vegetable crops, to reduce the potato monoculture . With committee members Robert Forster and Samuel Fox , he also lobbied

550-538: A time that the area had a climate similar to that of Siberia today. Later, this period became known as Magdalenian , named after a French cave, Abri de la Madeleine , where similar art to the Swimming Reindeer were found. The sculpture shows a female reindeer closely followed by a larger male reindeer. The larger male is indicated by his size, antlers and genitals, whilst the female has her teats modelled. The reindeer are thought to be swimming in illustration of

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600-637: A warm climate in spite of the presence of the reindeer. In the Tuc d'Audoubert cave, an 18-inch clay statue of two bison sculpted in relief was discovered in the deepest room, now known as the Room of the Bisons. Examples of Magdalenian portable art include batons, figurines , and intricately engraved projectile points, as well as items of personal adornment including sea shells, perforated carnivore teeth (presumably necklaces), and fossils. Cave sites such as Lascaux contain

650-636: Is a very complex work of art. And it seems to me that it has all the qualities of precise observation and interpretation that you'd look for in any great artist. This sculpture was chosen as object 4 in the History of the World in 100 Objects . This was a series of radio programmes created in a partnership between the BBC and the British Museum. Magdalenian Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy originally termed

700-400: Is characterised by regular blade industries struck from carinated cores. The Magdalenian is divided into six phases generally agreed to have chronological significance (Magdalenian I through VI, I being the earliest and VI being the latest). The earliest phases are recognised by the varying proportion of blades and specific varieties of scrapers, the middle phases marked by the emergence of

750-401: Is speculated that a French buyer might have been found, but they were eventually procured by the British Museum in 1887. De l'Isle initially offered his finds to the British Museum for the large sum of 150,000 francs, which would have a value in excess of half a million pounds in 2010. The offer was considered much too high and was not accepted by Augustus Franks , an enthusiastic antiquarian who

800-651: The Epigravettian . The three samples of Y-DNA included two samples of haplogroup I and one sample of HIJK . All samples of mtDNA belonged to U , including five samples of U8b and one sample of U5b . Around 14-12,000 years ago, the Western Hunter-Gatherer cluster (which predominantly descended from the Villabruna cluster, with possible ancestry related to the Goyet-Q2 cluster ), expanded northwards across

850-485: The "reindeer period", as the time of the cavemen in southern France then came to be styled. Christy's funding contributed to the discovery of Cro-Magnon man in 1868 in a cave near Les Eyzies . An account of the explorations appeared in a half-finished book left by Christy, entitled Reliquiae Aquitanicae, being contributions to the Archaeology and Paleontology of Périgord and the adjacent provinces of Southern France ; this

900-678: The Alps, largely replacing the Goyet-Q2 cluster associated Magdalenian groups in Western Europe. In France and Spain, significant GoyetQ2-related ancestry persisted into the Mesolithic and Neolithic , with some Neolithic individuals in France and Spain largely of Early European Farmer descent showing significant GoyetQ2 ancestry. Fertile Crescent : Europe : Africa : Siberia : Henry Christy Henry Christy (26 July 1810 – 4 May 1865)

950-524: The British Museum. After the Great Exhibition of 1851 , Christy began the study of tribal peoples. In 1852, and again in 1853, he travelled in Denmark , Sweden, and Norway . The public collections of antiquities at Stockholm and Copenhagen were a revelation to him, and from this time he collected objects from contemporary and prehistoric periods. The year 1856 was devoted to America. Travelling over Canada,

1000-655: The French palæontologist Edouard Lartet in the examination of the caves along the valley of the Vézère , a tributary of the Dordogne , in the south of France. Remains are embedded in the stalagmites of these caves. Thousands of specimens were obtained, some of them being added to Christy's collection. The sites they investigated included Le Moustier , the Abri de la Madeleine , both important type sites . In April 1865, Christy left England with

1050-641: The Magdalenian peoples were largely descended from earlier Western European Cro-Magnon groups like the Gravettians that were present in Western Europe over 30,000 years ago prior to the Last Glacial Maximum , who had retreated to southwestern Europe during the LGM. Madgalenian peoples were largely replaced and in some areas absorbed by Epigravettian -related groups of Villabruna/Western Hunter Gatherer ancestry at

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1100-400: The Magdalenian seems to have included cave lions reindeer, arctic foxes , arctic hares , and other cold weather specialists. Magdalenian humans appear to have been of short stature, dolichocephalic , with a low retreating forehead and prominent brow ridges . The culture spans from approximately 17,000 to 12,000 BP , toward the end of the most recent ice age . Magdalenian tool culture

1150-587: The United States, and British Columbia , Christy met Edward Burnett Tylor in Cuba , and they went on together to Mexico, where Christy made many purchases. Their Mexican travels were described by Tylor in his Anahuac (London, 1861). In 1858, the antiquity of man was proved by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes on flint implements in France; Christy joined the Geological Society that year. He went with

1200-503: The best known examples of Magdalenian cave art . The site of Altamira in Spain, with its extensive and varied forms of Magdalenian mobiliary art has been suggested to be an agglomeration site where groups of Magdalenian hunter-gatherers congregated. Some skulls were cleaned of soft tissues, then had the facial regions removed, with the remaining brain case retouched, possibly to make the broken edges more regular. This manipulation suggests

1250-575: The collection at the British Museum. Christy had a partial catalogue of his collections made in 1862, by Carl Ludvig Steinhauer . In 1864 he wrote an account of the work which was being carried out at his expense in the Vézère Valley; these notices appeared in the Comptes rendus (29 February 1864) and Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London (21 June 1864). They referred mainly to

1300-489: The deer's coat. Oddly there are ten deeper cuts on each side of the back of the leading female reindeer. These may have been intended to indicate coloured markings, but their purpose is unclear. Former Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor says of the manufacturing process: If you look closely, you can see that this little sculpture is the result, in fact, of four separate stone technologies. First,

1350-552: The end of the Pleistocene. The Magdalenian is represented by numerous sites, whose contents show progress in arts and culture. It was characterized by a cold and dry climate, humans in association with the reindeer, and the extinction of the mammoth . The use of bone and ivory as implements, begun in the preceding Solutrean , increased, making the period essentially a bone period. Bone instruments are quite varied: spear-points, harpoon -heads, borers, hooks and needles. The fauna of

1400-505: The forest of Beauregard near Paris have been suggested as belonging to the earliest Magdalenian. The earliest Magdalenian sites are in France. The Epigravettian is a similar culture appearing at the same time. Its known range extends from southeast France to the western shores of the Volga River , Russia, with many sites in Italy. The later phases of Magdalenian culture are contemporaneous with

1450-601: The government for practical help in improving Irish fisheries. He was one of the founders of the Aborigines' Protection Society . In 1857 he visited, with Lord Althorp and John W. Probyn, the Elgin settlement of free blacks in Ontario , writing afterwards to its founder William King , and giving money. He was also a committee member of the British and Foreign School Society . Christy

1500-496: The human re-settlement of north-western Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum during the Late Glacial Maximum . As hunter gatherers, Magdalenians did not re-settle permanently in northwest Europe, instead following herds and seasons. By the end of the Magdalenian, lithic technology shows a pronounced trend toward increased microlithisation. The bone harpoons and points have the most distinctive chronological markers within

1550-479: The ice age and coexisted with mammoths. The evidence for coexistence came not only from the reindeer but also from a carved spear thrower which was found in the same location. This device was used to gain extra leverage when throwing a spear. In this case it was made from a piece of reindeer antler that had been carved into the shape of a mammoth. The reindeer sculptures were again exhibited in 1884 in Toulouse, when it

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1600-613: The level where the artefacts were found. At this time it was thought that there were two separate carvings of reindeer as it was not obvious that the two pieces fitted together. De l'Isle wrote a paper on his discovery, and his finds were exhibited in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris . People were intrigued to see the sophistication of his finds and this sculpture in particular. The carvings were remarkable in that they illustrate reindeer , which no longer live in France. Dating

1650-419: The migration of deer that would have taken place each autumn. It is known that it would be autumn as both reindeer are shown with antlers, and only during autumn do both male and female reindeer have antlers. At this time of year reindeer would be much easier to hunt, and the meat, skin and antlers would be at their best. Each of the reindeer has been marked with a burin to show different colouring and texture in

1700-521: The nation, but with the finds from excavations in France to be shared with the French Musée d'Archéologie Nationale , which was to get the most important pieces. He also left £5000 which established the Christy fund that allowed the British Museum to purchase many more artefacts; with a sum of money to be applied to public exhibition. As there was then no spare room at the British Museum, the trustees secured

1750-672: The people of the Epigravettian culture/ Villabruna cluster than to the Magdalenians that practiced cannibalism (who belong to the GoyetQ2 cluster). The genes of seven Magdalenians, the El Miron Cluster in Iberia, have shown close relationship to a population who had lived in Northern Europe some 20,000 years previously. The analyses suggested that 70-80% of the ancestry of these individuals

1800-623: The period L'âge du renne (the Age of the Reindeer ). They conducted the first systematic excavations of the type site, publishing in 1875. The Magdalenian is associated with reindeer hunters, although Magdalenian sites contain extensive evidence for the hunting of red deer, horses, and other large mammals present in Europe toward the end of the last glacial period . The culture was geographically widespread, and later Magdalenian sites stretched from Portugal in

1850-439: The reindeer sculpture has no practical purpose, and is considered to be the oldest piece of art in any British museum. The finds came from the late Ice Age, which Henry Christy and Edouard Lartet originally called the "age of the reindeer". That is notable as the carving of mammoth ivory depicted reindeer and the mammoth spear thrower was carved from a reindeer antler. That fixes the co-existence of reindeer, mammoths and man at

1900-494: The shaping of skulls to produce skull cups . Finds of defleshed (as evidenced by cut marks) and cracked bones with human chewing marks at Gough's Cave , England suggests that the Magdalenian peoples there engaged in cannibalism . Cannibalism has been suggested at a dozen other Magadelian sites across the culture's geographic range, representing 25% of all Magdalenian sites, far more than any other European Paleolithic culture. It has been suggested that Magdalenian peoples practiced

1950-433: The suite of rooms at 103 Victoria Street, London SW (in which Christy himself had lived) and here the collection was exhibited, under the care of A. W. Franks , until 1884. The young Charles Hercules Read , later Franks's successor as Keeper at the British Museum, was based there doing the cataloguing, in his first work for the museum. In that year the removal of the natural history department to South Kensington made room for

2000-422: The tip of the tusk was severed with a chopping tool; then the contours of the animals were whittled with a stone knife and scraper. Then the whole thing was polished using a powdered iron oxide mixed with water, probably buffed up with a chamois leather . And finally the markings on the bodies and the details of the eyes were carefully incised with a stone engraving tool. In execution as well as in conception, this

2050-481: The typological sequence. As well as flint tools, Magdalenians are known for their elaborate worked bone, antler and ivory that served both functional and aesthetic purposes, including perforated batons . The sea shells and fossils found in Magdalenian sites may be sourced to relatively precise areas and have been used to support hypotheses of Magdalenian hunter-gatherer seasonal ranges, and perhaps trade routes. In northern Spain and south-west France this tool culture

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2100-693: The west to Poland in the east, and as far north as France , the Channel Islands , England , and Wales . Besides La Madeleine, the chief stations of the Magdalenian are Les Eyzies , Laugerie-Basse , and Gorges d'Enfer in the Dordogne ; Grotte du Placard in Charente and others in south-west France. Magdalenian peoples produced a wide variety of art, including figurines and cave paintings. Evidence has been found suggesting that Magdalenian peoples regularly engaged in (probably ritualistic) cannibalism along with producing skull cups . Genetic studies indicate that

2150-540: Was also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London , and sponsored the application for membership there of Augustus Lane Fox (later Pitt Rivers), the other major British collector of the time in the ethnographic field. In 1850 Christy began to visit foreign countries. Among the fruits of his first expedition to the East were an extensive collection of Eastern fabrics, and a large series of figures from Cyprus, which are now in

2200-674: Was also involved in numerous learned societies. He belonged to both the Ethnological Society of London and the Anthropological Society of London , representing different strands arising from early ethnology . He became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1856, and joined the Geological Society in 1858. He took part in both the archaeological societies of the period, and the Royal Geographical Society . He

2250-581: Was an English banker and collector, who left his substantial collections to the British Museum . Christy was born at Kingston upon Thames , the second son of William Miller Christy of Woodbines, a Quaker banker who started out in hat manufacture with interests in Stockport , before becoming a financier. Trained to business by his father, Henry Christy became a partner in the house of Christy & Co. in Gracechurch Street , and succeeded his father as

2300-708: Was from the population represented by Goyet Q116-1, associated with the Aurignacian culture of about 35,000 BP, from the Goyet Caves in modern Belgium. It has also been found that Magdalenians are also closely related to western Gravettians who inhabited France and Spain prior to the Last Glacial Maximum. The 15,000 year old GoyetQ2 individual from Goyet Caves is often used as a proxy for Magdalenian ancestry. Analysis of genomes of GoyetQ2-related Magdalenians suggest that like earlier Cro-Magnon groups, they probably had

2350-465: Was in charge of the north European collection at that time. Franks had been known to fund the museum's acquisitions himself, and he sent Charles Hercules Read to negotiate with de l'Isle. Read successfully managed to bring the price down to £500 (about £30,000 today). The purchase was funded by the Christy Fund, a £5,000 bequest by Henry Christy who had also left his own collections to the museum. It

2400-405: Was not until 1904 when Abbé Breuil saw the sculptures whilst visiting the British Museum that he realised that the two pieces fitted together, and were in fact two parts of a single sculpture. The sculpture is kept in a controlled atmosphere and is rarely moved. The ivory is now very fragile and it is feared that it could "turn to dust" if it were treated roughly. Unlike the mammoth spear thrower,

2450-505: Was possible as the two reindeer were carved in the ivory of an extinct animal. This dated the find as ancient and required a re-evaluation of the life of humans in the late Ice Age. This find was particularly astounding, as at that time no cave paintings had been discovered, and it was to be some years before those that were found were accepted as genuine. In fact it was only the work of Henry Christy and Edouard Lartet that had recently persuaded informed opinion that mankind had lived during

2500-548: Was superseded by the Azilian culture. In northern Europe it was followed by variants of the Tjongerian techno-complex. It has been suggested that key Late-glacial sites in south-western Britain may be attributed to Magdalenian culture, including Kent's Cavern . Bones, reindeer antlers and animal teeth display pictures carved or etched on them of seals, fish, reindeer, mammoths and other creatures. The best of Magdalenian artworks are

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