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Magdalenian

Magdalenian adjective: relating to the late Paleolithic culture typical of La Madeleine, c. 17000 to 12000 BCE.

Adjective

Magdalenian (not comparable)

  1. Relating to the late Paleolithic culture typical of La Madeleine, c. 17000 to 12000 BCE.
    • As the Sistine Chapel expresses the flowering of the culture of the Renaissance, so Lascaux expresses the flowering of the culture of the Magdalenians.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 120
    • The Cave of Lascaux became the world's most celebrated museum of Magdalenian art and as much an icon of the Pleistocene as mammoths and Neanderthals.2012, Lydia Pyne, Stephen J. Pyne, chapter 8, in The Last Lost World, Penguin, →ISBN

Noun

Magdalenian (plural Magdalenians)

  1. A person of the Magdalenian culture.
    • Whether or not we believe in astrology is irrelevant; the question is, did the Magdalenians?1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 130
    • The Magdalenians hunted a wide variety of prey, including horses, aurochs and fish, and are known for their highly sophisticated bone artefacts […].2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 221

Forms of Magdalenian

Adjective
alternative formMadelenian
Noun
pluralMagdalenians

Origin of Magdalenian

From French Magdalénien, Magdalene + -ian, after the Magdalene Shelter, an archaeological site in the Dordogne département of South-Western France.

Questions about Magdalenian

What does Magdalenian mean?
Magdalenian means relating to the late Paleolithic culture typical of La Madeleine, c. 17000 to 12000 BCE.
What part of speech is Magdalenian?
Magdalenian can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near Magdalenian in the dictionary

  1. Magdalene hospitals
  2. Magdalene Islands
  3. Magdalene laundries
  4. Magdalene laundry
  5. Magdalenes
  6. Magdalenian
  7. Magdalenians
  8. Magdalenite
  9. Magdalenites
  10. Magdaleno
  11. Magdalenos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Magdalenian (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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