Azilian

American  

[uh-zeel-yuhn, -ee-uhn, uh-zil-] / əˈzil yən, -i ən, əˈzɪl- /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of an early Mesolithic culture of southern France and northern Spain.

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Azilian British  

/ əˈzɪlɪən /

noun

1. a Palaeolithic culture of Spain and SW France that can be dated to the 10th millennium _bc , characterized by flat bone harpoons and schematically painted pebbles

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adjective

1. of or relating to this culture

Etymology

Origin of Azilian

1895–1900; named after Mas d' Azil, village in Ariège, S France, near where remains of the culture were found; -ian

Example Sentences

The area where the stone was found was used as a hunting site by the prehistoric Azilian culture.

From Fox News

In the cave of Mas-d'Azil, between the Magdalenian and Neolithic deposits occurs a stratum, termed Azilian, which, to some extent, bridges over the obscure transition between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages.

From Project Gutenberg

Yet E. Piette, who groups these pebbles, painted with peroxide of iron, in the four categories of numerals, symbols, pictographs, and alphabetical characters, states, in reference to these last, that 13 out of 23 Phoenician characters were equally Azilian graphic signs.

From Project Gutenberg

He places the Azilian age at 5500 B.C., the middle of the Magdalenian age somewhere about 8000 B.C.,

From Project Gutenberg

All that we can say with any confidence at present is that somewhen about 15,000 and 12,000 B.C. while the Azilian people were in the south of Spain and while the remnants of the earlier hunters were drifting northward and eastward, somewhere in North Africa or Western Asia or in that great Mediterranean valley that is now submerged under the waters of the Mediterranean sea, there were people who, age by age, were working out two vitally important things; they were beginning cultivation and they were domesticating animals.

From Project Gutenberg