Prehistory of France


Prehistoric France is the period in the human occupation 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 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.
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 1.2 million years ago.
5 prehistoric sites in France are dated from between 1 and 1.2 million years ago:
  • the Bois-de-Riquet, in Lézignan-la-Cèbe, in the Hérault, discovered in 2008
  • the Vallonnet cave, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, in the Alpes-Maritimes, discovered in 1958
  • Terre-des-Sablons, in Lunery-Rosières, in Cher,
  • Pont-de-Lavaud, at Éguzon-Chantôme, in Indre,
  • Pont-de-la-Hulauderie, in Saint-Hilaire-la-Gravelle, in Loir-et-Cher.
None of these sites have thus far revealed any evidence of lithic industry which prevents identification of the human species responsible for them.
France includes Olduwan and Acheulean sites from early or non-modern Hominini species, most notably Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis. Tooth Arago 149 - 560,000 years. Tautavel Man, 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. 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.

Middle Palaeolithic

The Neanderthals are thought to have arrived earlier than 300,000 BC, 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 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.
Important Mousterian sites are found at:
The first identified Neanderthal burials were discovered at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in 1908 then at La Ferrassie in 1909. 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, extending understanding of the human species beyond what had been hitherto assumed.

Upper Palaeolithic

The earliest indication of Upper Palaeolithic early modern human 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. 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.
European Palaeolithic cultures are divided into several chronological subgroups :
  • Aurignacian – responsible for Venus figurines, cave paintings at the Chauvet Cave.
  • Périgordian – use of this term is being debated.
  • *Châtelperronian – 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.
  • *Gravettian – responsible for Venus figurines, cave paintings at the Cosquer Cave.
  • Solutrean
  • Magdalenian – thought to be responsible for the cave paintings at Pech Merle, Lascaux, 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.

    The Mesolithic

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.
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.
Archeologists are unsure whether Western Europe saw a Mesolithic immigration. Populations speaking non-Indo-European languages are obvious candidates for Mesolithic remnants. The Vascons 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. 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.

The Neolithic

The Neolithic period lasted in northern Europe for approximately 3,000 years. It is characterised by the so-called Neolithic Revolution, a transitional period that included the adoption of agriculture, the development of tools and pottery, 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. 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. 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. Archeological sites from the Neolithic in France include artifacts from the Linear Pottery culture, the Rössen culture, and the Chasséen culture, 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.
The 'Armorican' and Northern French Neolithic is based on traditions of the Linear Pottery culture or "Limburg pottery" in association with the La Hoguette/Cardial culture. The Armorican culture may also have origins in the Mesolithic tradition of Téviec and Hoedic in Brittany.
It is most likely from the Neolithic that date the megalithic monuments, such as the dolmens, menhirs, stone circles and chamber tombs, found throughout France, the largest selection of which are in the Brittany and Auvergne regions. The most famous of these are the Carnac stones and the stones at Saint-Sulpice-de-Faleyrens.

The Copper Age

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" 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 grave megalithic 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.
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 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 near the Rhine that would remain stable for more than a millennium.
The Bell Beaker culture was a widespread phenomenon that expanded over most of France, excluding the Massif Central, in the third and early second millennia BC.