France > French History > Prehistoric France
Prehistoric France
There is a great fascination to prehistory when you live in, or visit, a place where prehistoric man was known to live. To be in the exact same place as our ancestors once lived, hunted, and painted the walls of their caves can be an almost overwhelming experience. Yet 10,000 years is perhaps just 500 generations, to transform the world from the world of cavemen to the world we now know, and it is just 5,000 years (250 generations) since Neolithic man was creating the first settlements and villages.
Timeline of Prehistoric Man in France
| Approximate Date | Stage of development of man |
| 950,000-80,000 BC | Homo Erectus, earliest man found in France |
| ...400,000 BC | Discovery of Fire |
| 80,000-30,000 BC | Neanderthal Man |
| 33,000-10,000 BC | Homo Sapiens - Cro Magnon Man, found in Dordogne |
| 4,000-2,500 BC | Neolithic revolution - settled locations, grew crops, kept animals |
There are two clearly defined stages of development in prehistoric man. The first is 'Cro-Magnon' when man first learned to make stone tools, and lived in caves where they created the famous cave paintings. The second stage is Neolithic Man, or 'late stone age' when man learned to settle, to build shelters, to grow crops and keep animals. Read about these periods:
