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Traces of human existence are rare in France until about 50,000 BC.
Thereafter, beginning with the "Mousterian ciilization", they
become ever more numerous, with an especially heay concentration of
sites in the Périgord region of the Dordogne, where, near thevillage of Les Eyzies, remains were discovered of a late Stone Age
people, subsequently dubbed "Cro-Magnon". Flourishing from around
25,000 BC, these cae-dwelling hunters seem to have deeloped quite
a sophisticated culture, the eidence of which is presered in the
beautiful paintings and engraings on the walls of the region's
caes.
By
10,000 BC human communities had spread out widely across the whole of
France. The ice cap receded, the climate became warmer and wetter, and
by about 7000 BC farming and pastoral communities had begun to
deelop. By 4500 BC, the first dolmens (megalithic stone tombs)
showed up in Brittany; around 2000 BC copper made its appearance; and by
1800 BC the Bronze Age had arried in the east and southeast of
the country, and trade links had begun with Spain, central Europe and
Wessex in Britain.
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Significant population shifts occurred, too, at this time. Around 1200
BC the Urnfield people, who buried their dead in sunken urns,
began to make incursions from the east. By 900 BC, they had beven joined
by the Halstatt people who worked with iron and settled in
Burgundy, Alsace and Franche-Comté near the principal ore deposits
. At some point around 450 BC, the first Celts made an appearance in the
region. |
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