Hierarchy classification:

1. top of the aat hierarchies
2. Styles and Periods Facet
3. Styles and Periods (hierarchy name)
4. [styles, periods, and cultures by region]
5. Early Western World
6. [ancient European styles and periods]
7. [European Upper Paleolithic styles and periods]
8. [Western European Upper Paleolithic styles and periods]

Anotations

Scope note:

Refers to the toolmaking and artistic culture of Upper Paleolithic Europe that followed the Mousterian culture, was contemporary with the Perigordian, and is named after the site at Aurignac in southern France. The distinctive style may indicate an intrusion of new peoples into western Europe, and is distinguished from contemporary cultures by a preponderance of retouched flake tools rather than blades, the creation of blades and burins by the punch technique, and split-base and biconical points. The culture is credited with the invention of the burin, which made engraved art possible. The art is characterized by stylized "Venus" figurines, small carvings and engravings that employ foreshortening and shading through cross-hatching, and cave paintings that include human hands being used as stencils and painted polychrome animals, often with distinctive "twisted perspective," which is a depiction of the animals in profile with their horns twisted to a frontal view.