Source ; Philippe Hecketsweiler, Histoire de la médecine, Ellipses, 2010.
Cro-Magnon man lived throughout the last great Ice Age - called Würm III - which reached maximum intensity 18 000 years ago. Scandinavia, the Alps and a good part of the British Isles, were covered by high glaciers reaching 3 kilometers in height. Sea level was so high that Great Britain was largely connected to the continent. The Adriatic was a large plain, as was the Persian Gulf. One could walk from Asia to America taking the Behring Straight. In France, vegetation was that of cold countries with tundra and birch forests. Deer and mammoths crossed frozen lands. The men of Cro-magnon hunted these in groups. They took refuge in huts or caverns. Funeral rites, sculpted objects such as the famous voluptuous Venus figurines or the Lady of Brassenpouy, and certainly decorated caves tell us of their aesthetic and spiritual pre-occupations and suggest a common religious source, a « religion des origines ».
The end of Würm III glaciation was for Cro-Magnon man an astounding adventure. Around 10 000 B.C., the climate changed radically, first slowly and then quickly. It is known as the ‘bolling’ : in one century, Sea levels went up by 28 meters! Everywhere men seem to have kept the memory of great climatic changes, inundations, a deluge. Waters from the Mediterranean seems to have precipitated into a fresh water lake to form the Black Sea. Vegetation quickly changed. The deer and mammoths from our regions went north. One then had to, either follow, which is what Artic peoples did, or else learn to chase rabbits and snails.
This change in climate certainly contributed to the Neolithic revolution which we can recognize in five domains :
1- the appearance of new techniques, in particular the polishing of stones,the metal working of copper, pottery, the bow, later the wheel;
2- a sedentary lifestyle with the creation of villages, later cities;
3- the domestication of animals making for better nutrition and furnishing means of transport and work;
4- mastery of vegetable species, in particular wild cereals and beans, transforming pickers into agricultural workers;
5- finally, demography, which saw world population augment dramatically, going from 10 to 100 million between 8 000 to 2 000 B.C. On the surface of modern-day France, during this same period, we seem to have gone from 20 000 inhabitants to some 4 000 000, witness to better living conditions.
This neolithic period formed the first stage to a mastery of Nature and represented an immense cultural leap.
Cro-Magnon man lived throughout the last great Ice Age - called Würm III - which reached maximum intensity 18 000 years ago. Scandinavia, the Alps and a good part of the British Isles, were covered by high glaciers reaching 3 kilometers in height. Sea level was so high that Great Britain was largely connected to the continent. The Adriatic was a large plain, as was the Persian Gulf. One could walk from Asia to America taking the Behring Straight. In France, vegetation was that of cold countries with tundra and birch forests. Deer and mammoths crossed frozen lands. The men of Cro-magnon hunted these in groups. They took refuge in huts or caverns. Funeral rites, sculpted objects such as the famous voluptuous Venus figurines or the Lady of Brassenpouy, and certainly decorated caves tell us of their aesthetic and spiritual pre-occupations and suggest a common religious source, a « religion des origines ».
The end of Würm III glaciation was for Cro-Magnon man an astounding adventure. Around 10 000 B.C., the climate changed radically, first slowly and then quickly. It is known as the ‘bolling’ : in one century, Sea levels went up by 28 meters! Everywhere men seem to have kept the memory of great climatic changes, inundations, a deluge. Waters from the Mediterranean seems to have precipitated into a fresh water lake to form the Black Sea. Vegetation quickly changed. The deer and mammoths from our regions went north. One then had to, either follow, which is what Artic peoples did, or else learn to chase rabbits and snails.
This change in climate certainly contributed to the Neolithic revolution which we can recognize in five domains :
1- the appearance of new techniques, in particular the polishing of stones,the metal working of copper, pottery, the bow, later the wheel;
2- a sedentary lifestyle with the creation of villages, later cities;
3- the domestication of animals making for better nutrition and furnishing means of transport and work;
4- mastery of vegetable species, in particular wild cereals and beans, transforming pickers into agricultural workers;
5- finally, demography, which saw world population augment dramatically, going from 10 to 100 million between 8 000 to 2 000 B.C. On the surface of modern-day France, during this same period, we seem to have gone from 20 000 inhabitants to some 4 000 000, witness to better living conditions.
This neolithic period formed the first stage to a mastery of Nature and represented an immense cultural leap.
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