Although the topics of migration and colonization have received renewed arc
haeological attention in recent years, their relevance to the deep past of
hunter-gatherer archaeology has been debated. The Magdalenian colonization
of southern Germany after the last glacial maximum, ca. 15,000-13,000 B.P.,
presents a case study in which many of the debated is sues can be explored
. Environmental change and relative demographic pressure played a causal ro
le in population movements, leading to a gradual, discontinuous expansion f
rom the Franco-cantabrian refugium. Active social strategies to overcome th
e risks facing frontier groups helped maintain remarkable uniformity in mat
erial culture across hundreds of kilometers, despite shifts in subsistence
and settlement patterns required in the newly occupied areas.