Prehistory
Palaeolithic inferior - Middle Palaeolithic
- Palaeolithic superior - Mesolithic age
- Neolithic age
Mesolithic age
The Mesolithic age is the period ranging between the end of
Palaeolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic age. In Brittany it
appears near -12 000 years before our age and is completed
approximately in -7 500 years. This period is characterised by
microlithic tools, often of geometrical form. It is at this period that
one allows the invention of the arc. The Mesolithic age is well
represented all over Brittany; they are several thousands of
excavations which were listed. Some sites: At Guiclan in the center
Finistere, the small cave of Roc' h-Toul provided a collection of tools
out of a little rough flints, but containing some beautiful points of
the azilian type. (Azilian period drawing its name from the excavation
of the Farmhouse of Azil in Ariège).
In Plonéour-Lanvern are engraved stones of geometrical forms
which were discovered. This art is allotted to the early Mesolithic
era.
Téviec and Hoëdic located in the gulf of Morbihan are two
major sites. They were excavated at the beginning of the 20th century.
The exceptional collection of microlithes of these two layers is
presented at the museum of the prehistory of Carnac. In this same site
of Téviec was also discovered a human skeleton whose vertebra
had still firmly planted a reinforcement of arrow. The first attested
wars appear. At the Egypt-Sudan border, in tombs from about -10 000
years, the skeletons of 24 individuals still had stone blades planted
in their bones. The development of these conflicts generates economic
and social changes. The very hierarchical clans are formed. Their
chiefs, true small princes, will be made bury in increasingly luxurious
tombs. The axe will become emblem of power. Its worship will reach its
apogee with the Neolithic age.
