Neolithic to Iron Age Man

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Neolithic to Iron Age Man

• France WInternational
• 2006

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Prehistory France

• Why did the early people come to France?
• Prehistory is elusive (why?)
• 1,000,000-700,000BCE homo erectus
• 400,000BCE evidence of Neanderthal man
• Cave dwelling near Tatuavel and Le Moustier
• 100,000BCE find evidence of fire, stone/wooden
  tools, and burials
  
• Ice age drives migration
• 35,000-30,000BCE cro-magnons displace the
  Neanderthals
  
• See art and religion developing

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Cro-Magnon Man
Neanderthal Man
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Old Stone Age

• 20,000BCE paleolithic communities develop stone
  flaking techniques
  
• Evidence of bone needles, stictched clothing, and
  harvesting horses
  
• Solutrean Culture

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New Stone Age

• 6,000BCE neolithic man reaches the Mediterranean
• 5,000BCE other tribes cross the Rhine and find
  Parisian basin
  
• Introduction of agriculture and village
  construction
  
• Construction of megalithic monuments (Carnac
  menhirs in Brittany)
  

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Carnac menhirs
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Neolithic

• Origin and history connected to postglacial
  climate and forest development
  
• Mediterranean zone became European center for
  change from hunter/gatherer to farmer
  
• 7th and 6th millennia evidence of agriculture
  and stock breeding
  
• Farmers recruited from indigenous Mesolithic
  hunters
  
• Live in small, family-based groups
• Some groups in Greece reached 3,000-4,000 people
• Subsistence farming supplemented by
  hunting/fishing

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Neolithic Farming Zones

• Mediterranean Zone
• Evergreen forest
• Winter rains
• Temperate Zone
• North of Pyrenees, Alps, and Balkans
• Deciduous forest with yearly rainfall
• Circumpolar taiga
• Coniferous forest
• No agriculture or stock breeding
• Eurasian Steppes
• Between the Rhine and Vistula

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Neolithic Farming

• What did they grow?
• Cereals, beans, peas, lentils, apples
• Cattle common sheep appear later
• Crop cultivation limited by poor equipment
• Slash and burn
• Tilled with hoes no plows until the Bronze age
• What did they eat?
• Meat-based diet shifts to plant after last ice
  age
  
• Little dairy until the late neolithic

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Neolithic Dwellings

• Communal houses built of mud brick on stone
  foundations with entrance on one end
  
• Also used wood to build gabled houses
• Up to 42m long (135ft)
• Eventually smaller (10m33ft)
• Late neolithic saw clusters of one- and two-room
  huts
  
• Houses built on piles or peat mosses in the Alps
• Large-scale settlements develop
• Ceremonial sites too

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Neolithic Tools

• Carpenters use celts (ax or adz heads)
• Also simple stuck into or through wooden shafts
• Rarely mounted with a hole for the shaft (like
  today)
  
• Manufactured in factories and traded over great
  distances
  
• Flint mined in shafts with antler picks and bone
  shovels
  
• Flint cutting tools and weapons
• Basalt and sandstone ground stone tools
• Wood, bone, shell, antler used too
• Pottery developed

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Neolithic Trade

• Neolithic societies were self-sufficient
• Luxury items transmitted long distances
• Also trade raw and finished products
• Shells, obsidian, yellow flint, amber
• Strong connections to the Agean and central
  Mediterranean cultures
  
• Unified by sea travel
• Spread both physical goods and ideas

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Neolithic Art

• Neolithic art was geometric (not
  representaitonal)
  
• Decorative pottery
• Handmade
• Painted (southeastern Europe)
• Incised, impressed, or stamped patterns
  (elsewhere)
  
• Cave paintings Lascaux, Grotte Chauvet
• Most depict herbivores Grotte Chauvet shows
  carniverous animals
  
• Why in caves??
• Petrogyphs

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Bronze Age

• 2,300BCE tribes from central Europe settle in
  France
  
• Metallurgy introduced (copper and bronze)
• Weapons and tools
• The wheel is invented!
• Ox-drawn plow increases farming productivity
• Wool weaving developed
• 1,500-750BCE proto-celts settle in Gaul

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Bronze Age Life

• Family/clan groups lived in round houses with
  pitched/thatch roofs
  
• Central fire hearth
• Made of mud bricks possibly windows
• Pebble mounds (sloped)
• Used natural bogs as refrigerators for butter
• Began making cheeses
• Tanning hides
• Development of artisan class

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Iron Age

• 725-450BCE evidence of sophisticated trade with
  other European cultures
  
• Superior jewelry and decorative objects
• 600BCE Marseille founded
• 450-50BCE La Tène culture emerges
• Rich chieftains encouraged ostentation
• Communal eating/drinking VIP part of life
• Horses tack and weaponry decorated
• Curvy, geometric, abstract designs
• Introduction of coins

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Rome approaches

• 300-250BCE celtic tribes reach southern Gaul
• Establish strongholds (oppida)
• Focus on manufacturing, trade, and politics
• Religion is controlled by Druids
• 218BCE Gauls support Hannibal in Punic war in
  Italy
  
• 180BCE first Roman army crosses the alps into Gaul