Prehistoric France is the period in the human occupation (including early
hominins) of the geographical area covered by present-day
France which extended through
prehistory and ended in the
Iron Age with the
Roman conquest, when the territory enters the domain of written history.
The
Pleistocene is characterized by long glacial periods accompanied by marine regressions , interspersed at more or less regular intervals by milder but shorter interglacial stages. Human populations during this period consisted of nomadic hunter-gatherers. Several human species succeeded each other in the current territory of France until the arrival of modern humans in the
Upper Palaeolithic .
The first trace of human occupation in France is dated to more than 1.57 million years ago. The earliest known fossil man is
Tautavel Man, dating from 570,000 years ago.
Neanderthal Man is attested in France from about 335,000 years before present.
Homo sapiens, modern humans, are attested since around 54,000 years ago in the
Mandrin Cave.[1][2]
In the
Neolithic , which begins in the south of France in the middle of the 6th millennium BC, the first farmers appeared. The first megaliths were erected in the early 5th millennium BC.
The Palaeolithic
Lower Palaeolithic
The lower paleolithic period began with the first human occupation of the region. Stone tools discovered at
Lézignan-la-Cèbe indicate that early humans were present in France from least 1.57 million years ago.[3]
5 prehistoric sites in France are dated from between 1 and 1.2 million years ago:[4]
the Bois-de-Riquet , in Lézignan-la-Cèbe , in the Hérault (1.2 Ma), discovered in 2008
the Vallonnet cave , in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin , in the Alpes-Maritimes (1.15 Ma), discovered in 1958
Terre-des-Sablons, in Lunery-Rosières , in Cher (1.15 Ma),
Pont-de-Lavaud, at Éguzon-Chantôme , in Indre (1.05 Ma),
Pont-de-la-Hulauderie, in Saint-Hilaire-la-Gravelle , in Loir-et-Cher (1 My).
None of these sites have thus far revealed any evidence of
lithic industry which prevents identification of the human species responsible for them.[4]
France includes
Olduwan (
Abbevillian) and
Acheulean sites from early or non-modern (transitional) Hominini species, most notably Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis. Tooth Arago 149 - 560,000 years.
Tautavel Man (Homo erectus tautavelensis), is a proposed subspecies of the hominid Homo erectus, the 450,000-year-old fossil remains of whom were discovered in the
Arago cave in Tautavel.
The
Grotte du Vallonnet near
Menton contained simple stone tools dating to 1 million to 1.05 million years BC.[5] Cave sites were exploited for habitation, but the
hunter-gatherers of the
Palaeolithic era also possibly built shelters such as those identified in connection with Acheulean tools at
Grotte du Lazaret and
Terra Amata near
Nice in France. Excavations at Terra Amata found traces of the earliest known domestication of fire in
Europe, from 400,000 BC.[5]
Middle Palaeolithic
The
Neanderthals are thought to have arrived earlier than 300,000 BC,[a] but seem to have died out by about by 30,000 BC, presumably unable to compete with modern humans during a period of cold weather. Numerous Neanderthal, or "
Mousterian", artifacts (named after the
type site of
Le Moustier, a rock shelter in the
Dordogne region of France) have been found from this period, some using the "
Levallois technique", a distinctive type of
flint knapping developed by hominids during the
Lower Palaeolithic but most commonly associated with the Neanderthal industries of the Middle Palaeolithic. Importantly, recent findings suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans may have interbred.[7]
The first identified Neanderthal burials were discovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in 1908 (dating from 70 ka) then at La Ferrassie in 1909.[10] The identification of burial practices in Neanderthals at these sites led to new insights concerning the capacity of Neanderthals to develop spiritual or metaphysical beliefs,[11] extending understanding of the human species beyond what had been hitherto assumed.[12]
Upper Palaeolithic
The earliest indication of
Upper Palaeolithicearly modern human (formerly referred to as Cro-Magnon) migration into France, and indeed in the whole of Europe, is a series of modern human teeth with Neronian industry stone tools found at Grotte Mandrin Cave,
Malataverne in France, dated in 2022 to between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago. The Neronian is one of the many industries associated with modern humans classed as transitional between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic.[13] When they arrived in Europe, they brought with them sculpture, engraving, painting, body ornamentation, music and the painstaking decoration of utilitarian objects. Some of the oldest works of art in the world, such as the
cave paintings at
Lascaux in southern France, are datable to shortly after this migration.[14]
European Palaeolithic cultures are divided into several chronological subgroups (the names are all based on French
type sites, principally in the
Dordogne region):[15]
Périgordian (c. 35,000 - 20,000 BP) – use of this term is being debated (the term implies that the following subperiods represent a continuous tradition).
Châtelperronian (c. 39,000 - 29,000
BP) – culture derived from the earlier, Neanderthal, Mousterian industry as it made use of Levallois cores and represents the period when Neanderthals and modern humans occupied Europe together.
Magdalenian (c. 17,000 - 10,000 BP) – thought to be responsible for the cave paintings at
Pech Merle (in the
Lot in
Languedoc, dating back to 16,000 BC),
Lascaux (located near the village of
Montignac, in the
Dordogne, dating back to somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 BC, and perhaps as far back as 25,000 BC), the
Trois-Frères cave and the
Rouffignac Cave also known as The Cave of the hundred mammoths. It possesses the most extensive cave system of the
Périgord in France with more than 8 kilometers of underground passageways.
From the Paleolithic to the
Mesolithic, the Magdalenian culture evolved. The Early Mesolithic, or
Azilian, began about 14,000 years ago, in the
Franco-Cantabrian region of northern
Spain and
Southern France. This was ahead of other parts of Western Europe, where the Mesolithic began by 11,500 years ago at the beginning of the
Holocene. It ended with the
introduction of farming.[17]
The Azilian culture of the
Late Glacial Maximum co-existed with similar early Mesolithic European cultures such as the
Tjongerian of North-Western Europe, the
Ahrensburgian of Northern Europe and the
Swiderian of North-Eastern Europe, all succeeding the
Federmesser complex. The Azilian culture was followed by the
Sauveterrian in Southern France and Switzerland, the
Tardenoisian in Northern France, the
Maglemosian in Northern Europe.[18]
Archeologists are unsure whether Western Europe saw a Mesolithic immigration. Populations speaking non-Indo-European languages are obvious candidates for Mesolithic remnants. The
Vascons (
Basques) of the
Pyrenees present the strongest case, since their language is related to none other in the world, and the Basque population has a distinct genetic profile.[19] The disappearance of
Doggerland affected the surrounding territories and the hunter gatherers living there are believed to have migrated to northern France and as far as eastern Ireland to escape from the floods.[20]
The
Neolithic period lasted in northern Europe for approximately 3,000 years (
c. 5000 BC–2000 BC). It is characterised by the so-called
Neolithic Revolution, a transitional period that included the adoption of
agriculture, the development of
tools and
pottery (
Cardium pottery,
LBK), and the growth of larger, more complex settlements. There was an expansion of peoples from southwest Asia into Europe; this diffusion across Europe, from the Aegean to Britain, took about 2,500 years (6500 BC–4000 BC).[21] According to the leading
Kurgan hypothesis, Indo-European languages were introduced to Europe later, during the succeeding
Bronze Age, and Neolithic peoples in Europe are called "
Pre-Indo-Europeans" or "
Old Europe". Nevertheless, some archaeologists believe that the Neolithic expansion, and the eclipse of Mesolithic culture, coincided with the introduction of
Indo-European speakers.[22] In what is known as the
Anatolian hypothesis, it is postulated that Indo-European languages arrived in the early Neolithic.
Old European hydronymy is taken by
Hans Krahe to be the oldest reflection of the early presence of Indo-European languages in Europe.
Many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale family-based communities, subsisting on
domestic plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and with hunting, and producing hand-made pottery (that is made without the
potter's wheel).[citation needed] Archeological sites from the Neolithic in France include artifacts from the
Linear Pottery culture (
c. 5500 – c. 4500 BC), the
Rössen culture (
c. 4500—4000 BC), and the
Chasséen culture (4,500 - 3,500 BC; named after
Chassey-le-Camp in
Saône-et-Loire), the name given to the late Neolithic pre-
Beaker culture that spread throughout the plains and plateaux of France, including the
Seine basin and the upper
Loire valleys.[citation needed]
During the
Chalcolithic or Copper Age, a transitional age from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, France shows evidence of the Seine-Oise-Marne culture and the Beaker culture.
The
Seine-Oise-Marne culture or "SOM culture" (
c. 3100 to 2400 BC) is the name given by archaeologists to the final culture of the
Neolithic in Northern France around the
Oise River and
Marne River. It is most famous for its
gallery gravemegalithic tombs which incorporate a
port-hole slab separating the entrance from the main burial chamber. In the
chalk valley of the
Marne River rock-cut tombs were dug to a similar design. In the Southeast, several groups whose culture had evolved from
Chasséen culture also built megaliths.[27]
Beginning about 2600 BC, the
Artenacian culture, a part of the larger
European Megalithic Culture, developed in Dordogne, possibly as a reaction to the advance of
Danubian peoples (such as SOM) over Western France. Armed with typical arrows, they took over all Atlantic France and Belgium by 2400 BC, establishing a stable border with the
Indo-Europeans (
Corded Ware) near the
Rhine that would remain stable for more than a millennium.[citation needed]
The
Bell Beaker culture (
c. 2800–1900 BC) was a widespread phenomenon that expanded over most of France, excluding the
Massif Central, in the third and early second millennia BC.[citation needed]
In the
Kurgan Hypothesis, Indo-European languages spread to Europe in the Bronze Age. The culture of the Kurgans is also known as
Yamnaya Culture and recent results from acheaogenetics have linked this culture with genetic ancestry components of the
Western Steppe Herders, and it has been possible to reconstruct migrations of these people across Europe co-extensive with the arrival of the Yamnaya and
Corded Ware cultures.[citation needed]
In France, the first studies on the Bronze Age date from the 19th century. The "Manuel d'archéologie préhistorique, celtique et gallo-romaine," (Manual of Prehistoric, Celtic and Gallo-Roman Archaeology), by Joseph Déchelette, published in 1910, was for a long time the reference for the study of this period.[29] In the 1950s, Jean-Jacques Hatt proposed a subdivision of the French Bronze Age, and in 1958 he published a tripartate division.[30] This model divided the Bronze Age into three parts, Early Bronze, Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Age and serves as a reference for the majority of subsequent studies on the Bronze Age in France.[31]
The
Bronze Age archeological cultures in France include the transitional
Beaker culture (
c. 2800–1900 BC), the Early Bronze Age
Rhône culture (
c. 2300-1600 BC) and
Armorican Tumulus culture (
c. 2200 – c. 1400 BC), the Middle Bronze Age
Tumulus culture (
c. 1600-1200 BC), and the Late Bronze Age
Atlantic Bronze Age (
c. 1300 – c. 700 BC) and
Urnfield culture (
c. 1300-800 BC). Early Bronze Age sites in Brittany (Armorican Tumulus culture) are believed to have grown out of Beaker roots, with some
Wessex culture and
Unetice culture influence. Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family (see
Proto-Celtic). This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age; the Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices.[citation needed]
Some archeologists date the arrival of several non-Indo-European peoples to this period, including the
Iberians in southern France and
Spain, the
Ligures on the
Mediterranean coast, and the
Vascons (
Basques) in southwest France and Spain.[citation needed]
The spread of
iron-working led to the development of the
Hallstatt culture (
c. 700 to 500 BC) directly from the Urnfield.
Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is generally considered to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early 1st millennium BC.[35]
The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the
La Tène culture, which developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from
Greek, and later
Etruscan civilizations. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Farther to the north extended the contemporary
Pre-Roman Iron Age culture of Northern Germany and Scandinavia.[35][36]
By the 2nd century BC, Celtic France was called
Gaul by the Romans, and its people were called
Gauls. The people to the north (in what is present-day Belgium) were called
Belgae (scholars believe this may represent a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements) and the peoples of the south-west of France were called the
Aquitani by the Romans, and may have been
Celtiberians or
Vascons.[citation needed]
^The oldest known Neanderthal fossil in France was found in 1998 in the cave of Pradayrol, in Caniac-du-Causse, in Lot-et-Garonne. A Neanderthal incisor has been dated there to 335,000 years.[6]
^Provence stelae with chevron ornamentation are relatively well dated. They have always been dated to the Middle Neolithic, and more exactly to the Late Chasséen.[26]
^"The Thaïs Bone, France". UNESCO Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy. The engraving on the Thaïs bone is a non-decorative notational system of considerable complexity. The cumulative nature of the markings together with their numerical arrangement and various other characteristics strongly suggest that the notational sequence on the main face represents a non-arithmetical record of day-by-day lunar and solar observations undertaken over a time period of as much as 3½ years. The markings appear to record the changing appearance of the moon, and in particular its crescent phases and times of invisibility, and the shape of the overall pattern suggests that the sequence was kept in step with the seasons by observations of the solstices. The latter implies that people in the Azilian period were not only aware of the changing appearance of the moon but also of the changing position of the sun, and capable of synchronizing the two. The markings on the Thaïs bone represent the most complex and elaborate time-factored sequence currently known within the corpus of Palaeolithic mobile art. The artefact demonstrates the existence, within Upper Palaeolithic (Azilian) cultures c. 12,000 years ago, of a system of time reckoning based upon observations of the phase cycle of the moon, with the inclusion of a seasonal time factor provided by observations of the solar solstices.
^Chopin, Jean-François; Gomez de Soto, José (2014).
"Fragment de lame d'épée ou de poignard du type de Tréboul-Saint-Brandan du site du Perrou 2 à Maillé (Indre-et-Loire)". Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française. 111 (3): 530–533.
doi:
10.3406/bspf.2014.14439.
S2CID194679648. The technostylistic origin of the swords of Tréboul and Le Cheylounet types has been widely debated elsewhere. For the former, J. Briard (1965) favoured an evolution from the
Armorican Tumulus daggers; for the latter, J.P. Daugas and D. Vuaillat (2009) highlight a
Unétician tradition, but the strong technostylistic kinship between the two sword types suggests a complex interplay of influences. Their chronological position is clearly established: Middle Bronze Age 1, from about 1550 to 1450 BC according to the latest available chronological details. (Translated from French)
Champagne, Fernand; Champagne, Christian; Jauzon, Pierre; et al. (1990). "Le site préhistorique des Fieux à Miers (Lot) [Etat actuel de la recherche]: Etat actuel de la recherche". Gallia préhistoire. 32 (1): 1–28.
doi:
10.3406/galip.1990.2275.
Dufau, Jean; Favarel, Jacques; Séronie-Vivien, M. (2004). "Un site pléistocène moyen à hominidé en Quercy : La grotte de Pradayrol à Caniac-du-Causse (Lot)" (in French).
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