- 40 000 : Homo Sapiens Sapiens,
that
means "present" man (us !), who appeared in
Africa 120 000 years ago, settles and take the place of
the Neandertal man in Western Europe
- 33 000 : Disappearance
of
the last Neandertal men who were living for example at La
Férrassie
(at Savignac inDordogne). They were processing tools as Sapiens
Sapiens, like blades or bone tools.
1)
Hunters and
Pickers :
Combe Capelle man (close
to
Montferrand in Dordogne) is a Sapiens Sapiens man with some
neandertal features.
-
30 000 : Cro-Magnon man
(at the Eyzies of Tayac in Dordogne)
with very few
neandertal features.
a)
Subdivisions of the
superior Paléo-lithique (means
"old-stone", and superior because now processed by
sapiens sapiens men !) :
Date |
Name |
Origin |
Représentative |
Tools
|
Art in
cave
|
-33 000 |
inferior
Perigord |
from Dordogne |
Combe Capelle man |
First bone tools
|
Front or
animal heads : La Ferrasie
|
-30 000 |
Aurignac |
from Aurignac, in
Haute Garonne |
Cro-Magnon man |
bone spike of lance
|
Back
cervical line : Isturitz (64), Gargas (65), Pair-non-Pair
(33)
|
-20 000 |
superior
Périgord |
from la Ferrasie in
Dordogne |
|
bone needle with eye
|
mane, ears :
Lascaux
(24)
|
-15 000 |
Magdalenian |
from La
Madeleine (at Tursac in Dordogne) |
Chancelade man |
important bone
industry, with harpoon and lances
|
Feet ont the
ground : Font de Gaume and Combarelles (24), Niaux (31),
Altamira in north Spain.
|
Chauvet
cave in Ardèche. Pech-Merle
cave.
ART
: Head
of Brassempouy woman (Landes,
-27 000?), Reared horse at Bruniquel (Tarn et Garonne), Lespugue
Venus (Haute Garonne), sculpted La Madeleine buffalo (Dordogne), Lourdes
horse at Espelugnes (Hautes
Pyrénées)
b)
- 10 000 : Meso-lithique
("middle stone"), with arrows and so with the bow. Climate
warming, forests
replace
steppes, disappearance of huge animals like the mammoth or the
big reindeer, and so disappearance of important food reserves.
Human population is estimated on France territory : 50 000 men
- 9 000 : Azilian
(from the
Mas d'Azil, in Ariège)
- 7 500 :
Sauveterrian (from
Sauveterre le Lémance, in Lot et Garonne)
2)
Breeders and
farmers :
-
6000 : Néo-lithic
revolution
("the new-stone") = the POLISHED
stone:
Under
the influence of asianic
people (coming from Anatolia), men
start to breed
animals and to dig over
the soil (wheat is coming after, from Mesopotamia ; elder
(-4000)
french cereals found in Thémines, near Rocamadour in the Lot). This
helps to
create pottery
(to cook and keep the
food), the weaving, the first sedentary
villages
(wooden houses have
left very few vestiges),
a demographic boom
; it's the "neolithic revolution", wich "polished
stone" term give a slight (and wrong) idea. Thanks to the
different potteries, but also with the help of the gravestones,
some important asianic families have been reconstituted :
Asianic
people : |
|
Pottery |
Graves |
THENACIANS |
Roucadour
Artenac
|
Pottery with flat
bottom |
hillocks
small graves (chest)
|
CARDICAL FRANCO IBERICS
and CHASSEANS
|
Roquefort |
Smoothy potteries,
decorated with triangles
|
pits
cistum
|
MEGALITHICS |
|
Pottery with round
bottom, and then flat one
decorated with commas
|
dolmen
with
covered path |
ALMERIANS |
Montbalo |
Pottery with conical
bottom, and with large handles |
dolmen |
LIGURES (house
on
post) |
Bascs ? |
Gobelets campaniform
tumblers (bell shape) |
stone chests |
* - 3 200 :
pottery at Saint Michel du Touch (Haute Garonne) ; potteries at
Camprafaud and at Jean Cros.
* dolmens in the South West of
France :
|