Docteur Jean-Georges Rozoy

During the Upper Pleniglacial only southem France was occupied. During the Bölling temperate phase (ca. 13,000-12,200 BP) people of the Magdalenian culture occupied some sla (tribal or macro-band'l) territories ranging from ca. 15,000 to 35,000 km2 in area, in zones with substantial relief. The bow and arrow with microlithic tips were invented belote the end of Dryas v. Since Alleröd times, the whole area of modem-day France was used by Azilioid bow hunting peoples, the boundaries of whose social territories are net yet known. The oblique section bladelet was invented during the Dryas vI cold phase. By the end of Preboreal, more than 30 Mesolithic cultures had established themselves and remained stable. During Boreal, tribal territories covered some 15,000 km2 each and had populations of1000-3000 people each - as during the Magdalenian, but without the empty zones among The territories. The microlithic trapeze arrowhead was invented belote the Atlantic phase. Changes in indusThes were thus net caused by climatic changes; rather they were the results of technical inventions. The time lag in terms of inventions achieving their fuit social effect was on the order of 1000 yr. © 1998 vNQUA/'Elsevier Science Ltd. Ail rights reserved

THE STUDY AREA

To the north of The Loire (47°N), from Brittany to Alsace, The substratum soifs and relief are quite varied. The western end of The loess-covered North European Plain, without much relief or rockshelters, includes Picardy with chalk limestone bedrock, Flanders and Holland with cover sands and silts, and, further east, northern Germany with glacial tilt. To The south of this plain, The Ardennes and Rhineland schist massif are mainly silicious, but contain broad bands of Primary limestones with caves (as in the Belgian valleys of The Lesse, Ourthe, etc.). Sharp relief in this region is due to both continued uplift of The Primary shield rock and river entrenchment, resulting in vertical clills of up to 200 m and elevational changes of up to 350 m in onlya few kilometers. The plateaux slopes and valley floors bave a wide variety of exposures, providing for many dillerent biotopes within a relatively small area. To The south of these massifs, from west to east there area serres of regions which are rather rolling, but with less relief and lacking in rockshelters and caves: Brittany and The copses of Normandy and Vendée with granite and schist bedrock; then The Paris Basin with its concentric rings of Secondary and Tertiary substratum (alternately silicious and calcareous -- The latter providing caves at The southern edge of The Basin in Morvan); finally the mainly silicious plains of Lorraine and Vosges Mountains, Alsace, and the silt-covered floodplain of The Rhine. Water is lacking in none of these regions, but flint resources are highly variable: virtually nil in Brittany, on The Ardennes Plateaux, in The Rhineland Massif and in The Vosges (where, in ail these cases, however, it can be imported from no more than 100 km away), but abundant elsewhere in limestone bedrock areas (excellent chalk flint, mediocre Dogger and Muschelkalk shales), in alluvia (cobbles in The bedlands of the Meuse, Moselle and Rhine) or in moraine deposits. Quartzites and sandstones can serve as substitutes for flint where it is absent or rare. The southern half of France contains major mountain chains (Massif Central, Pyrenees and Alps), plains (such as The Aquitaine Basin) and broad limestone regions rich in karstic caves. In short, its environmental diversity is no less great than in The north.

SUCCESSIVE PALEOENVIRONMENTS OF THE PLEISTOCENE-HOLOCENE TRANSITION

After The Last Glacial Maximum, variations in temperature and humidity, which are The determinant factors for terrestrial plant and animal life, brought abouta great variet y offioral and faunal spectra and ecological habitats over The course of time: from virtually abionc polar desert, to cold steppe with reindeer and horse, to closed temperate forest with deer and boar. With The exception of regions with very special lithology (sands or chalk, which are both peculiarly infertile), the main vegetation types in any given climatic phase can be more or less The same ail over this extensive macroregion of Europe and The fauna can be even more so.
The latter was The critical element for hunters, since flirt can always be carried. This un[fi)rmit_V of tord resources over a broad area at an_V giron time is a fondamental fact, to which the only significant exception is provided by The Atlantic coast, which would have provided supplementary food resources. But we are ignorant of The coasts which existed during the terminal Pleistocene and initial Holocene, since they have been inundated by postglacial sea level rise. We can only get an indirect idea of what The coastal situation may bave been like from The Atlantic period (sea level at -10 m), with shell middens at only a short distance from The ancrent shore. The use of many marine resources assumes a capacity for deep sea fishing, something that is unlikely for The periods in question here. It also presupposes The existence of storage, for which we bave no certain archeological proof.
During The Bölling warming phase, hunters lived ina cold, dry steppe with graminaceae (grasses), Carex (sedges), compositae and rare, cold-tolerant trees (birch and willow), but not a tondra (which would bave existed further north near The margins of The retreating continental glacier). Depending on The dillerent Himatic subphases, reindeer or horse was dominant, accompanied by aurochs, bison, saïga, ibex, arctic fox and arctic tiare, etc. (Bridault, 1994). Favorable microhabitats, such as that around The Magdalenian site of Chaleux in The Lesse River valley of southem Belgium (Noirel-Schutz, 1990) already bave The appearance of thermophile trees (aider, oak, hazel, maple and even beech - for an arboreal pollen total of > 40%). Joining The above mentioned 'cold' mammals (which remained dominant) at this time were varions temperate species: red and roe deer and boar, as well as such birds as The capercaillie and The fieldfare.

In Dryas v, temperate trees and animais disappeared from northem France; The Ardennes Plateaux were once again barren lands without game where soi] wedges were formed as results of either frost or drought. Humans of the cold steppe in The southern Paris Basin travelled further south in sommer to Morvan rather than to The Ardennes, which was unoccupied (Rozoy, 1988a, 1992b; Charles, 1994). In Alleröd, The whole of northem France was covered with open forest, dominated sometimes by pine, sometimes by birch, both associated with aider, poplar, hazel or linden (Leroi-Gourhan, 1994). Reindeer and other cold steppe animais retreated further north, »hile horse and bovines were still present (Baales, 1994). Red and roe deer, boar and beaver were now major complements to The horse and bovines typical of The Last Glacial, and biomass must have actually increased (Elton, 1950; Rozoy, 1978 (pp. 1064-1065)). It is thus wrong to consider the warming as 'an ecological disaster'(Bar-Yosef, 1992; Bosinski, 1990 (p. 260)).

The final cooling episode, Dryas vI, saw a retum of cold steppe and reindeer in Belgium, where this cervid is dominant in The cave of Remouchamps (Dupont, 1872; Dewez, 1987). Faunal data are missing for the Paris Basin. But reindeer did not retum to the south of Germany (Cziesla, 1992).

The Holocene began with The Preboreal, characterized here by open pine-birch forest with some mlaed oak thickets. Large to medium-size mammals included not only boar, red and roe deer and beaver, but also aurochs, horse and rare moose. In The climatic optimum of The Boreal phase, there was massive development of hazel, but the fauna remained The same. As in the Preboreal, boar, favored by The existence of clearings, was more abondant than red deer (Rozoy, 1978 (pp. vi, 328, 1057)). Aurochs is still present, as at Roche-aux-Faucons (Cordy, 1976). During The Atlantic period, which was more humid, a darker, more closed, dense mlaed oak forest spread throughout these regions, and was composed of as wide a variety of taxa as is presently The case (oak, linden, elm, various species of maple, asti, chestnut, hornbeam, birch, hazel, aider, poplar, mountain asti, wild cherry, service tree, two eiders, black aider, hawthorn, holly, juniper, and fate in this period, beech). But The main animais are still The same (red and roe deer, boar, beaver) and neither aurochs nor horse had completely disappeared (Dewez and Cordy, 1983), although red deer, an animal preferring copses, is now more abondant than boar.

In ail periods, salmon ascended The rivers of these regions in Spring to spawn. They, along with other fish, could bave provided a very important part (25 -75%) of human subsistence, especially at our latitudes (47-50°lN) (Lee, 1968; Rozoy, 1978 (p. 1061)). However we are still not well informed as to The real significance of fishing in human diets in the periods dealt with here, although we know that it did occur.

CHANGES IN THE LITHIC INDUSTheS: CAUSES AND MECHANISMS

The succession of indusThes and cultures in northern France and Northwest Europe is well-known (Fagnart, 1992, 1993). Tiroir correspondence ivith climatic episodes is only global in nature: in the Bölling and Dryas v we bave Upper Magdalenian (and in The lNorthwest the Creswellian, in The Northeast The Hamburgian); in Alleröd The varions Azilioid or Federmesser cultures; in Dryas vI the Ahrensburgian and Malaurie Point cultures. In early Preboreal there are indusThes with battered blades; and at The end of Preboreal varions early Mesolithic cultures. During The Boreal we bave defined several middle Mesolithic cultures and during The Atlantic there developed fate and terminal Mesolithic cultures and then The lNeolithic, with evidence of local acculturation.

TABLE 1. The three changes in Epipalaeolithic ('Mesolithic') industries

Note: All threc inventions began before the increase in The teviperaturc which thej< h:iv.e been said to be derived from: microlithism began in Dryas Il in varions shapes (Magdaleni÷in VI Azilian points, Couze station microliths, Valorguian spindle points, as.o.); bladelet truncating appeared in The Ahrensburgian as soon as ihe beRinning of'Dryas vI and typical trapezes around 7800 (uncalibrated) everywhere in Europe.

The existence of The gênerai climate phase - cultural period correlation led archaeologists to think for a long time that changes in industry had been caused by changes in climate. Those who proposed this postulate did not even try to prove it (and with good reason). Indeed, this false 'good idea' bas repeatedly been shown to be contradicted by The facts. Many demonstrations as to The error of this postulate bave been made for The Lower Paleolithic (e.g., Chavaillon et ai., 1978), for The Middle Paleolithic (e.g., Laville, 1977 (p. 136)), for The Upper Paleolithic (de Sonneville-Bordes, 1966 (p, 30); Laville, 1977 (pp, 131-137); Le Tensorer, 1977 (p, 137)) and for The transition to postglacial times (Leroi-Gourhan and Renault-Miskovsky, 1977 (p, 45); Straus, 1992; Street, 1994)). Bar-Yosef (1992 (p. 183)) shows that 'it is social organization that is responsible for The failure or success of The survival of a society that must confront a rapid ecological deterioration provoked by atmospheric agents; The Inuit (hunters) having, witha simpler, more flexible social structure ... overcome The vicissitudes of The Little Ice Age' which nonetheless had destroyed The Scandinavian agro-pastoral colonization effort on Greenland. In what concerns us here, the three essential technical changes of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition time range (the bow requiring light projectiles, oblique truncation of bladelets producing 'geometric microliths', Montbani retouch with typical trapezes) ail began belote The climatic inflections that had been thought to cause them (Rozoy, 1978 (p. l189); 1989b, 1993b, 1994b) (Table 1). This myth of climate change as The sole supposed cause for changes in indusThes would bave humans merely imitate The animais. It is a holdover from mechanistic positivism; its persistence in prehistory is serions because it minimizes or bides The rote of The real mechanism for cultural change.

This real mechanism is invention under permanent pressure tram The environment (Rozoy, 1994b). Chavaillon et ai. (1978) established that, for The 1.5 my of the Lower Paleolithic, 'The first changes concerned technical equipment, and changes in The lifeways came later'. This is also true for The beginning of The Epipaleolithic with The delayed ellect of The bow on social life (Rozoy, 1978 (p. l189)) and, according to J-P. Fagnart (1993), there are technical characteristics for The same period that suggest first The appearance of The types of points required by The bow in lNorthwest France and only several centuries later, The related technical changes in débitage. Such a technical change is confirmed in The Paris Basin by Bodu et ai. (1994b): already in Alleröd The débitage was geared to The production of small blades and bladelets (necessary, as we bave shown, for The manufacture of light weapon tips). In addition, in The Lower Paleolithic as in The Epipaleolithic, 'The (chronological) limits of transitions are diflicult to determine and vary depending on which criteria one chooses'(Chavaillon et ai., 1978). That is to say there is a continuum of mosaic evolution, with many technical inventions being, on The one hand, independent of one another and of The environment on The other hand. To this temporal mosaic we addeda spatial mosaic in The Epipaleolithic (Rozoy, 1992a), with changes being progressive, correlative and independent (Rozoy, 1978 (pp. 918-920), 1994b).

THE UPPER MAGDALENIAN

After The void of The Upper Pleniglacial during which only southern France was inhabited, The Upper Magdalenian population during Bölling and Dryas was concentrated in northern France and Belgium only in The two areas shown in Fig. I A; one to The southeast of Paris (27 sites) and The other in The Ardennes (14 sites). These two oct:upied zones (Rozoy, 1988a, 1992c ( = 'habitual territory' according to Taborin, 1992) (='inhabited space' according to Audouze, 1992)) totalled some 13,000km2. These zones were frequented by bands belonging to The same regional group estimated to include about 1000 people, which left behind, here and there, lithic residues of similar types and quantities (Rozoy, 1988b, 1994c). The sizes of The bands are estimated, on The bases of site dimensions, contents and subsistence evidence, to bave been between about 50--80 people, including children (Rozoy, 1992b, c). The absence of Marlemont flint at Roc-la-Tour I, The presence of Charleroi-area fossils and Ottignies phtanite in The sites of The Lesse Valley show that The Belgian Magdalenian group acquired their flint in Belgium, which presumes relatively long stays in that territory.
However The Ardennes seems to bave been occupied only in sommer during Bölling (Patou, 1992; Rozoy, 1994c; contra Straus and Otte, 1995), probably by one or two bands, whose main site, Chaleux, was favored by an exceptionally benign micro-climate (lNoirelSchutz, 1990). The inhabited area of The ParisBelgium group was about 15,000km2, as found elsewhere (Rozoy, 1992c) and probably a constant. In The risited zones (='occasional territory' of Taborin, 1992 ='traversed space' of Audouze, 1992), there are isolated sites some 50-100 km from one another that must represent occasional visits that were either repeated je.g., St. Mihiel (thevenin, 1976), Verberie (Audouze et ai., 1981), Gouy (Martin and Martin, 1984)) or single various small sites in Normandy (Fosse, 1994). Taborin (1993) shows that shells used as ornaments were sometimes transported over very great distances (as much as 400 km), necessarily as a result of human movements, since there are large empty spaces among occupied territories. In this case we are dealing with phenomena'outside The realm of economic space', and within The domain of'social space, that of alliance networks'.

These two occupied zones included sites established on very dillerent substrata (limestone, schist, sands and sandstone, alluvia), but they are always in areas of significant relief- as is also The case even with some of The isolated sites (St. Mihiel, Gouy). The relief is especially marked in The Ardennes; it is notable in The Loing valley, with marked dilierences in substratum (sands, alluvia, calcareous plateaux); it is slight in The Seine Valley, where nonetheless it bas been noted (Méloy, 1983) that at Etiolles an abundance of braided channels of The Seine caused The creation of a wide variety of microhabitats at The foot of the slope where The site is located. In The German Rhineland, also a region of relatively marked relief, another social group, that of Gônnersdorf and Andernach (Rozoy, 1989a), seems to bave alternated its visits with a life based in another, very dilierent calcareous, hilly region, that of The Swabian Jura in southwest Germany. The factor that determined The choice of settlement areas seems to hure been The diversity of easily dacessible biotopes, as was also The case in the'classic' Magdalenian regions of The Périgord, the Pyrenees, Vasco-Cantabria, Massif Central, Jura, etc. This facilitated The driving of herd animais into culs-de-sac in order to slaughter them (Straus, 1993), a fact which is related to a technique of hunting in large groups with use of The atl-atl and dart and which explains The existence of large empty regions of low relief (less favorable to such a kind of big game hunting by drives). Another significant topographie factor is The existence of rivers with fords where reindeer crossed and could easily be killed (e.g., at Pincevent, Etiolles, Marsangy and Verberie - as at many Périgord sites and at The Pastou sites in Les Landes (Audouze and Enloe, 1994; Straus, 1993)). Brittany, lacking in flint, does not even seem to bave been visited in The Magdalenian; this is also The case of Lorraine, where The flints are very mediocre. In contrast to The Mesolithic bowmen who knew how to use even The worst shales, The Magdalenians do not seem to bave been able to live without good flint. But even that was not enough: The Champagne region, ricin in chalk flint, but lacking in rockshelters and in ecological diversity and with poor soifs that were probably only lightly vegetated in Tardiglacial times, was not visited, although it was crossed - probably as quickly as possible from fear of snow or dust storms. Curiously, The Magdalenians, generally very interested in fossils, did not even stop to collect The fossil urchins that are easily found in Champagne. The flat lands of Middle Bel gium north of The Ardennes were used by a dilierent group, The one of Gônnersdorf-Andernach, who came to procure Maastrichtian flint - a type apparently not used by The Ardennes Magdalenian group, a fact which proves The restriction of The latter to The hill country. One can recognize in The Upper Magdalenian (Julien, 1989) base camps, extraction sites, transit sites, etc., in conformity to The now-classic ethnographic scheme for hunter-gatherer spatio-functional organization. But The very existence of aggregation sites is now questioned by one of its early promoters (Conkey, 1992), since The large sites are simply palimpsests of superimposed small and medium-size ones, resulting from repeated returns to The same places during the course of the annual cycle of hunting bands within their territories (Taborin, 1994). There are both broad empty zones among social (tribal?) territories that were only crossed and small empty areas w>ithin The occupied zones (Rozoy, 1992b)(Fig. 7). But The unity of The Magdalenian culture, with The long-distance circulation of fossil and contemporary shells, art objects and styles, and of technical inventions, ail show that contacts among regional (tribal?) groups were fairly frequent and that members could understand one another fairly well. Maybe The Magdalenian corresponded toa language family, whereas the Creswellian to The Northwest and The Hamburgian to the lNortheast could bave corresponded to one or two other language familles (perhaps derived from that of the Magdalenian) - but ail this is highly speculative at present. At The very end of The Magdalenian, at The site of Marsangy in The Paris Basin (Schmider, 1994), the hunters killed reindeer (which are The dominant game here) with backed or shouldered points that are respectively already of Azilian or Hamburgian style. The dimensions of these points and their average weight (3.66 g for The shouldered points) fait clearly within The range of microliths - proof that The beginnings of microliths and The (re-) invention of the bow took place before The end of The cold conditions. 'This invention of The savages is one of the triumphs of the human spirit' (Wilson, 1900).

Fig. 1.(A) The Magdalenian north of the Loire. Thick fine: edge of the Primary Ardenne Plateau and Rhineland Massif; dashed fine: edge of the chalk limestone region of Champagne; black dots: Magdalenian sites (those in parentheses are either early Magdalenian [Hallines, Farincourt] or doubtful [Alsdorf, Férébrianges]); Open circles: known lithic sources. (B) Magdalenian and Epipaleolithic sites in northern France (after Fagnart, 1993). The apparent concentrations of sites in the Seine and Somme valleys stem from quarrying operations that have been closely monitored by archaeologists.

THE INITIAL EPIPALEOLITHIC: FEDERMESSER AND TJONGERIAN

For Alleröd and Dryas vI our information is only good for The Netherlands, northern Germany, Belgium and (recently) Picardy, where the Alleröd landscape was occupied (Fig. 2A) by an Azilioid industry, the Tjongerian, which is part of the Federmesser l'penknife' or 'Azilian point') group. These poifits are arrow tips propelled by bow (Rozoy, 1978(p. 1009), 1992c).
Bosinski (1993) insists that ail these indusThes be called 'Azilian', just as one calls most of The assemblages in western Europe for The preceding period 'Magdalenian'. But that would blur significant regional differences, whose very identification is a crucial aspect of modem research ( Rozoy, 1993a). The number of sites in these regions shows that The lacuna in much of The northem half of France was The result of a research problem: we did not know where to start looking for sites of this period in these landscapes. Fagnart (1993) bas just recently been able to determine The intensity of Tjongerian huinan occupation of The region of Picardy: the sites are generally buried under recent alluvium; almost every sand/gravel pit inspected seriously bas yielded evidence thereof at a rate of about one site per hectare for ail Leptolithic periods combined (Fagnart, 1994) (Fig. I B). In Germ÷iny, there arc Fc,(lc,raiesséer sites on The surface just about cverywhere that the Alleröd ground surface bas not been eroded or covered. Sites of this period are just now beginning to be found in The Paris Basin (Bosselin, 1982, 1983; Fosse and Locard, 1986----1987; Fosse, 1993, 1994; Bodu c't ai., 1994b; Fosse and Valentin, 1994) and in eastern France (thevenin and Guillot, 1989; Vanetti and thevenin, 1989). The essential dilierence with The Final Paleolithic is that The latter occupied less than a fourth of The a><attable territory. The use ()f vv of'it hé gan w>ith the invc,ntion ()f nv'croliths, due to The power of bow hunting (Rozoy, 1993b). Although the sites are small (Fagnart, 1993 (p. 248)), they ai-e much more numerous.

Despite the many sites that bave been excavated in England, Netherlands and Belgium (both on The plains and in hills), no i,Veil-dqfine(1social territories haï:e yet been discei.ne(1 by archeologists. Newell and Constandse-Westermann (1986, 1995, 1994; l9ewell, 1994a, b, 1990) have determined, by comparison with submodern hunting groups in North America living under very similar ecological conditions, that none of The 10 best-documented single-occupation Azilioid sites at their dispos;il was used as a residential camp. They reject any division for this period into geographic or temporal units (e.g., 'Tjongerian', 'Rissenian', 'Creswellian') and propose the hypothesis that there was just one big social territory whose base camps were in The now submerged combined delta of the Paleo-Thames and Rhine. This territory would bave been that ofa tribe or language family whose bauds seasonally or altemately exploited The biotopes of the interior or of The coasts. If it was a language family, the question of constituent tribal territories remains pending, but unresolvable, according to Newell, due to the submersion of The critically diagnostic base camps.

The alternative would be a kind of territorial exploitation system based on constantly moving from one small site to another without any distinction between residential and other types of (logistical) sites (Bosinski, 1988, 1990; Fagnart, 1993 (p. 264)). This is probable given the marked diàerence that appears from the beginning of the Fc?dermesset (1.e., with the widespread adoption of the bow) vis à vis the preceding Magdalenian: sites that are much less specialized, small, but numerous, with suggestions of high human mobility (Fagnart, 1993 (p. 248)). The spread of sites with backed points throughout the whole Paris Basin (and more widely, tbroughout ail of France, down to The Pyrenees) would suggest The existence of regional social groups: one cannot conceive of just one tribe for half of western Europe. Bosselin (1982, 1983) bas stressed The unique characteristics found at St. Pierre du Bosguérard and other Norman sites that are hard to lump in with previously known indusThes of this period, for example. We must continue along this vein and base our comparisons on statistical comparisons among whole assemblages, not on categorization of residential sites or specialized camps, which may no longer even bave existed as such if logistical exploitation vi The environment was replai:ed b y residential mobility'. Under this hypothesis The delimitation of social territories would also remain to be done.

Fig. 2.(A) Curved-black point sites. Haiching: area of dense Tjongerian finds based on Rozoy (1978) (p. 106), subsequently expanded especially in Belgian Campine according to Vermeersch (1984). German sites net included. (B) Ahrensburgian and other tanged point sites. Hatching: area of dense Ahrensburgian finds. Dots: isolated sites. The German distribution has no doubt been enriched subsequent to publication of Rozoy (1978), but the rest of The map has been updated after Cziesla (1992) and with information from reccnt Mesolithic colloquia. Cross-hatching: area of dense brmsed blade fmds in England; Short vertical fines: bruised blade sites in France (after Fagnart, 1993, 1994; Fagnart and Plisson, 1994; Bodu et al., 1994)

THE EARLY EPIPALEOLITHIC: AHRENSBURGIAN MALAURiE POINT CULTURES AàD BATTERED BLADE CULTURES

The Ahrensburgian invented, right in The middle of The Dryas vI cold episode, The oblique truncation of bladelets, The basis of ail later development of microliths. It was not The postglacial warming that was the cause; it >vas simply an invention. In The Netherlands, Belgium and northwest Germany this culture is distributed between The loess and sandy plains (with open-air sites) and The zone of limestone hills (with four rockshelter and cave sites, including Remouchamps in southeast Belgium). Yet archeologists bave not discerned any significant dilierences in game, industry composition or site structure between these natural regions (Rozoy, 1978). To The contrary, there is a distinction between The regions just cited and The type region of The Ahrensburgian further to The northeast in The same plain (Fig. 28), where The tanged points are bigger (Taute, 1968). There is another dilierence vis-àvis The sites of southwest Germany (Cziesla, 1992) which are in hilly country as in The Ardennes. An attribution of The southwest German materials of this period to The Ahrensburgian had previously never been recognized and reindeer apparently did not return to this region in Dryas vI. Thus The nature of The terrain, its relief and fvnt sources do not seem to play a rôle in determining social territories. Nor do The species of game animais (if The faunas found to The south of The Ardennes and Rhineland massifs are confirmed).

There is also a separation between The lNorthem France-Belgium group and a cluster of several sites recently discovered in The Paris Basin (Fagnart, 1993; Hinout, 1985), where tanged points are rare and were generally replaced by Malaurie or Les Blanchères points (although dating here is still uncertain). Isolated Ahrensburg points bave been found on The surface in imprecise contexts in eastern France and Burgundy (Fig. 28); they are probably analogous to The sites in The Paris Basin. Terrain and relief had no significance in ail of this, but although one can begin to perceive The existence of a minimum of four distinct cultural groups, the precise delimitation of social units remains to be done in ail these regions, for which purpose we cannot yet specify any natural features (river basins, for example) which could bave played a rote in their geographic definition.

There is a broad distribution of tanged points throughout France, Luxembourg, and Germany, fat in many cases from The classic zones of The Ahrensburgian, and generally found in association with backed points (Fig. 28) (Hinout, 1985; Schmider, 1994; Rozoy, 1978(pp. 381-386); Giraud and Vignard, 1946; thevenin and Guillot, 1989; Huchet and thevenin, 1994; Krzyzanowski and Rozoy, 1994; Cziesla, 1992). One can perceive in this record both The beginnings of weapon tip dirersiïcation (which would become a constant among The bow hunting cultures) and the develo pment via spatial mosaic (Rozoy, 1992a); types invented in one area would diffuse into neighboring territories, but would be used there only moderately, often in modified form. This spatial mosaic was absent in The Mousterian; it is unknown, or at least not apparent, in The Upper Paleolithic.

The indusThes with battered blades, attributed to The transition between Dryas vI and Preboreal, bave only recently been identified in France (Fagnart, 1993; Boucher, 1994; Bodu et ai., 1994a,b; Fagnart and Plisson, 1994; Dumont, 1994). It is possible that they belonged to The Ahrensburgian or, more likely, to its western equivalents which especially used obliquely truncated and backed points. These assemblages are just workshop facies, so one cannot talk about social territories in these cases. At The most one can presume, given The distances involved, that these sites in Seine-etMarne, Loir-et-Cher, Somme and England, belonged to several human groups for which future research may reveal their characteristics. Depending on whether one would stress The common traits or accentuate dilierences of detail, researchers can make The battered blade indusThes either into one group (with minor subdivisions) or several related cultures. But in any case there seems to be no relationship to either terrain or relief in The geographic distribution of these kinds of assemblages. Their location near sources of abundant, goodquality flint is striking, which is normal in a workshop facies but which has no cultural meaning in itself.

END OF THE EARLY STAGE: THE TARDENOISIAN AND OTHER CULTURES

Fig. 3. (A) Sites dating to the end of the Early Stage. Late Preboreal groups are only defined with reference to those of the Middle Stage, which are more abundant. However the differing compositions of mhic indusThes (Fig. 38 and C) show that distinct socle-territorial groupings had already formed. (B) Composition of Tardenoisian and Western indusThes at the end of the Early Stage. Samples: La Brenière = 295 retouched items (Gouraud, 1992); Kerjouanno = v 8 (Rozoy, 1978); Chaville 3 = 130 (Rozoy, 1978); Flamanville = 831 (Lefevre, 1993); Hailles = v 6 (Rozoy sort). The latter is distinguished by the presence of retouched flakes, segments and one invasively retouched point fragment, and by the absence of isosceles triangles. The cumulative percentage graph for Flamanville is distorted by the inclusion of backed bladelets among the arrow tips; isosceles triangles are aise absent here. The fact that the curves for La Brenière and Kerjouanno, on the other hand, and Hailles and Flamanville, on the other, cross, clearly stiggest the existence of regional differences by this time. (C) Composition of Northem indusThes at the end of the Early Stage. Samples: Geldrop vI-2 = 352 retouched items; Les Mazures = 186; Roc-la-Tour = 198 (Rozoy, 1978). These sites are distinguished by the percentages of arrow tips, endscrapers, retouched flakes, truncated, shouldered and basally truncated points, with crossings among the curves that signify the existence of three diflierent social groups that are confirmed in later stages.

The regional bowmen's cultures were already constituted by The end of The Preboreal. They had probably already begun to form among The Azilioid cultures, but The available documentation does not yet permit us to establish The nature of this process. At The end of The early Epipaleolithic stage we only know of a few sites (Fig. 3A), most of which, however, are well dilierentiated (Fig. 38 and C). The southeast Brittany group is represented by La Brenière (Gouraud, 1992) and Kerjouanno (Rozoy, 1978) with isosceles and scalene triangles. The Finistère group (The hypermicrolithic Bertheaume industry) is foreshadowed by Enez-Guennoc (Landeda) (Kayser, 1989), where, as in The contemporaneous British Maglemosian, there are only simple obliquely truncated micropoints. On The Cotentin Pen-
insula, The site of Flamanville (Lefevre, 1993), at The very beginning of The Boreal, is also dominated by these simple points. The Somme culture is first seen at Hailles (Ducrocq, 1989; Rozoy, 1994a) where these points are surpassed numerically by segments --- with an imbalance of weapon tip types unparalleled in The Tardenoisian. These cultures of the northwest (in contrast to those of southern and southeastern Brittany) used few triangles. Thus it is not The isosceles triangles that permit us to recognize The early stage here, but rather the abundance of points with unretouched base that is temporally diagnostic, along with other elements, notably among The common tool types. These are ail st j.listic i÷avants having no perceptible eneironniental eausc?. Everywhere there were several classes of weapon tips in use at The same time .- normally 4-5 (Rozoy, 1992d). This is in sharp contrast with The monotony of points among The Azilioid cultures.

In The early Tardenoisian (Rozoy, 1978) The weapon tip craze began. This group encroached on The edge of The Ardennes with The site of Roc-la-Tour v, but there is a clear dilierence with The two known sites of the early stage in The Belgian Ardennes (Rozoy, 1978), which are distinguished from The Tardenoisian by their style of débitage, by their tools and by The abundance of retouched flakes. The early Limburgian at Geldrop vI-1, further North, used more endscrapers than retouched flakes: thus The distinction between The Limburgian and the Ardennian seems to be confirmed. In Vuxembourg, Altwies-Haed (Ziezaire, 1989), confirmed by Berdorf-Kalekapp 2 (Blouet et ai., 1984) and by Montenach in Lorraine (Galland, 1995), and further south in Verseilles-le-bas (Huet and thevenin, 1994), are just as clearly dilierent from The Tardenoisian as is the Ardennian, with low percentages of weapon tips, abundant endscrapers, or retouched flakes, and very dilierent débitage styles and tool manufacturing processes. In Germany, the Hambach group (Arora, 1976, 1978) used many endscrapers. In Switzerland, Birsmatten (Rozoy, 1978) bas mainly retouched flakes as tools. But The distances are too great (200-100 km) and The number of sites too small for one to either confirm or deny The existence of cultural communities among ail these sites. the complote occupation of The landscape show.s thon tke global population had ificreased since Magdalenian times, when people were restricted to only certain territories to avoid a dispersion that could lead to extinction. But we are not yet able to estimate The size of the population increase for The Early Stage of the Epipaleolithic. Tribal territories still could bave been larger than in the Middle Stage.

There remain several other problems to be solved. In Brittany there is an apparent analogy between the assemblage of Kerjouanno on The one hand with Chaville (south of The Seine) and on The other hand with Roc-la-Tour v of The Northern Tardenoisian (Rozoy, 1978 (Plates 201 and 207)), though we cannot say that this signifies The existence of a widespread social community. Despite various problems, one is sure to find divergences between The Tardenoisian and the indusThes of southern Brittany as far back as The early stage. The distances are simply too great from the latter region to sites like Chaintréauville, Chaville and Roc-la-Tour (450-675 km); they exceed those observed between sites of the Tardenoisian, Ardennian, Limburgian, Somme and other cultures, including those of Altwies, Montenach and Verseilles, whose clear dilierences are further confirmed by subsequent developments in each region. Kerjouanno, with its triangles (mainly isosceles) is also frankly dilierent from The sites of western and northern Brittany; it probably belongs with a west-central French early Epipaleolithic group.

Terrain,relief and distance to flint are not involved, since Ardennian sites are located in dilierent kinds of terrain which bave counterparts among The Tardenoisian and Limburgian sites. The Ardennian people used imported raw materials from the south jmarlemont) and north (Belgian and Dutch chalk flint) and made The same kinds of tools from both sources. The forest and the animais were The same and were used in The same ways in each region. The,factor ()J'unit_r which gives each culture its cohesion already seems to be purely internal to each social grouping.

THE MIDDLE EPIPALEOLITHiC STAGE CULTURES

Beginning with the Boreal, the vumber of well analyzed sites is such that we can trace The limits of social societies on The basis of social territories (Fig. 4). The geographic grouping of typological and stylistic peculiarities argues strongly for an ethnographie interpretation (Rozoy, 1980, 1991, 1992, 1994a). However the delimitation of cultures is incomplete due to a lack of suflicient regional studies of both qualitative and quantitative nature (Rozoy, 1980, 1991a, 1994a). AIthough The existence of distinctive regional groups has been recognized, often The absence of detailed studies of neighboring groups does not permit precise demarcation of boundaries. The best-defined culture is the northern Tardenoisian, which separated from the southern Tardenoisian in The Middle Stage, although The southeastem boundary is still not well established due to lack of research. With The exception of The Bertheaume group (Kayser, 1989), the groups presented here with small geographic areas (ca. 3000 km2), insuflicient for the survival of an endogamous dialectical tribe represent only The beginnings of research of this sort. The existence of an autonomous culture in each of these regions is evident due to The large quantities of assemblages from one or two well-excavated type sites for each group (e.g., Montclus, Ogens-Baulmes. Birsmatten, Beuron) or clusters of nearby sites (as in The case of The Montadian), even surface sites. Yet, due to The lack of comparable sites, we cannot derme The edges of these cultural groups. The sites of Quatre-Arpents at St. Privé (Huchet and thevenin, 1994), for example, just recently led Violot (1994) to propose an east»ard extension of The Beaugencian with its very particular débitage style. This is possible, but would suppose inclusion of The Richoux group of sites (Pigeot, 1973).
These sites manifest some dilierences vis-à-vis both the Beaugencian and The southern Tardevoisian. This is just one example; there remains a lot of work to do to explore around known culture centers as well as in archeologically nonsurveyed territory. For instance, in The 250km that separate The Beaugencian and the Sauveterrian one could argue at present either fora continuum of artifact composition changes or for one (or two) boundaries between these two cultures and the Tardenoisian.

The geographical areas occupied by the ar(.heologv:ai cultures in this period (Rozoy, 1978) probably corresponded to tribal territories - if one can use for hunter-gatherer a term more appropriate for describing Neolithic farming societies (Service, 1968). There was
no central authority and organization was provided at The level of The band, not at the level of the tribe (Service, 1971; Newell et ai., 1990 (p. 23)), so there are no living equivalents for such groups, which one should perbaps refer to as peoples. The Middle Epipaleolithic bands were apparently always smaller than those of the Magdalenian, thanks to The power of The bow, but they were much more numerous. The unity maintained by each culture during the course of millennia implies the existence of frequent contacts and exchanges among bands - including intermarriages, with ban(1 e.x'ogavi,r and intra-culture endogamj> on the order of 80%. There are many very large sites (e.g., Piscop, Auliargis, Champs Bertin), but modem excavations (e.g., Le Tillet (Rozoy, 1994a)) show that these are in fact palimpsests of many small and middle-size occupations. These characteristics are common to and stable among ail stages throughout Europe, a fact which exclude environemental determinism as a causual factor.

Fig. 4. Cultures of the Middle Stage. Satisfactory territorial demarcation is only possible for the northern sector and for Brittany. Orner cultures can only be delimited with reference to their neighbors, which bave net yet been studied in any detail.

Some authors (e.g., Kozlowski, 1975, 1980j Rozoy, 199 la (p. 85)) bave described much broader areas ona selective qualitative basis. Each bas grouped some 15-20 (or more) archeological cultures and, when some degree of consistency can be demonstrated, they are argued to represent language familles or even larger units. These have no relationship with The environment, since they cross out many ecological zones. Thus for Kozlowski The Sauveterrian (sensu tata) extends across The plains of Aquitaine, The plateaux of Quercy, The valleys of The Rhône and Saône, The Jura uplands anda significant part of The Alps. The 'Beuron-Coincy culture', according to The same author, covers The whole south of Germany (calcareous and hilly), The Ardennes (silicious), The loess plains of Brabant and Picardy, and The Paris Basin ail The way down to The big bend of The Loire. The relative homogeneity of such vast entities and especially their precise limits can neither be confirmed nor (more likely) rejected without rigorous, detailed qualitative and quantitative analyses of their constituent cultures, only some of which bave even been adequately defined and described.

Cultures identified for The Middle Epipaleolithic stage cover areas on the order of 15,000-20,000 km2, just as for the occupied areas of The regional groups of the Magdalenian. Populations are estimated from The nutritive capacity of each territory to bave ranged between 1000-3000 people per culture (Rozoy, 1978, 1994a), again in The same order as was The case for The Magdalenian for evident reasons of population dynamics (Newell and Constandse-Westermann, 1986 (p, 270); Rozoy, 1992c (p. 185)). The dilierence, which is considerable, is that now there are no empty zones between groups. Each culture knows and visits its neighboring cultures; The archeologist can discern manifest technical and stylistic influences around The territorial boundaries of these groups. But these are nonetheless limited, since traditions clearly maintained The individuality of each group's own characteristics. There were, however, many exchanges of members among regional groups; just as in The Magdalenian (Gambier, 1992; Garralda, 1992; Billy, 1992) ail of Europe constituted a single reproductive population- and for good reason, since population density was too low to permit strict coincidence of The dialectical tribe with The reproductive population (Constandse Westermann and Newell, 1989; Newell et al., 1990).

In Brittany, however, there seems to bave been a significant reduction in social territory sizes (Fig. 5). Fairly homogeneous in its soifs and relief, this peninsula of 15,000 km2 seems to bave been divided among several groups according to the observed dilierences among flint indusThes (Kayser, 1989). Perhaps The existence of very indented rocky coastlines with abundant, accessible marine resources permitted The existence of smaller territories. It bas been observed in California, for example, that some sub-modern foraging groups could reach population densities and sedentism as high as those of some farming societies as a result of marine resource exploitation and a more structured social organization (Constandse-Westermann and Newell, 1994). Thus there could bave been a significant environmental influence in this case on The size of social territories. But this idea is contradicted by calculations of The food values supplied by shellfish which show that mollusks could only bave been supplements to The main diet (Rozoy, 1978 (pp. 1034-1039)). If the cultural subdivisions for Brittany proposed by Kayser (1989) are well founded (which seems to be The case), there must bave been a major dietary contribution from coastal fishin g, which is not yet demonstrated. Perhaps this included salmon storage, as in the case of Indian cultures along The American Northwest coast? But at The present time we bave no actual evidence for such storage or resultant sedentism in Brittany. The alternative to this picture would be that Kayser's three West-Brittany groups were actually sub-groups of a single large culture, which would bring Brittany into conformity with The general rule of Epipaleolithic cultures covering ca.
15,000km2. Further work should clarify this, buta special research program would be needed to really determine The nutritive values of ail marine food resources that are accessible from the shore, as well as to determine The nature of relations among the various population groups on the peninsula.

In general, The cultures display great stability through time on their traditional territories. Graduai modifications in The indusThes leave no doubt as to their cultural affiliations. In situ changes show clear evidence for The long-term maintenance of even local techniques, especially of a stylistic nature (e. g., marginal retouch). Such peculiarities persist across millennia, despite overall changes in indusThes and in climate. Frontiers, howerer, w>ere often perméable to inventions: including new techniques such as oblique truncation, micro-burin sectioning, or trapezes, each of which spread throughout ail of Europe within less than a century evertheless, there were always some groups which rejected new techniques and each culture could and did adopt inventions in its own way. Specific types of weapon tips le.g., Tardenois points, invasively retouched points) diliused over more or less long distances outward from their places of invention; this is The spatial mosaic on which we have insisted (Rozoy, 1992a). Cultural boundaries also allowed The passage of fads and styles, even if it was with exceptions. The Coincy débitage style, marginal retouch, scalene triangles with a concave short side, truncation of The distal ends of points and The sectioning of points by means of The microburin technique are examples of such 'fads'. According to their utility, or the aesthetic taste of The hunters, these fads diliused over diliering distances, sometimes across as many as 3-4 cultures' territories.

Fig. 5. (A) Mesolithic human groups in Brittany (after Kayser, 1989, 1990). Sea level is still somewhat low ( - 40 m in the Preboreal; -10 m in the Recent and Final Epipaleolithic Stages), but the creation of estuaries by post-glacial transgression may have led to the formation of the Western cultures with small territories, especially the Bertheaume industry in Finisterre. The southeastern Brittany group, though as yet poorly defined, probably had a broader extension inland, with a more normal territory size. (B) Culiures of ihe Recent Stage. Kayser (1992) maintains the existence of smaller groupings in Brittany, such as ihe Teviecian. In SE France the nature of the transition between the Montadian and The CasteInov>fan cultures bas Rot been demonstrated, although at Monclus it must have occurred net earlier than the second half of The 6th millennium BC with the appearance of trapezes and a change in microlith manufacturing technique. (C) Cultures of the Final Stage. The only notable changes occur in the Southeast, with the inland spread of the CasteInovian, the 'neolithization'of the coastal zone and the subsequent break in relations between the coastal and interior groups.

Thkese frontiers stayed quite constant orer lime. The only change we bave been able to discern up to now concerns The limit between The Northern Tardenoisian and The Ardennian (Rozoy, 1990), which retreated southward between The early and middle stages, even down to The Marlemont flint source. In contrast, supposed changes in the boundary between the Tardenoisian and Somme cultures between The middle and fate stages bave proven to be illusory (Rozoy, 1994a). But another sort of change that was probably more frequent was the dirision of a single culture into tw>(J 'daughter cultures" During The middle stage The Tardenoisian, this initially unitary culture, broke into two units which would become quite distinct by The fate stage. The new frontier would be along The Seine. Tbis phenomenon is the result of processes that are wellknown to ethnographers, as division occurs once population reaches a limiting value, although that limit seems variable, somewhere between 3000-10,000 people (Newell c?t ai., 1990). Such processes were probably responsible for developments in southwest France, where a separation occurred resulting in the development of the Causses group on Quercy (with Montclus triangles) and of the Sauveterrian, as demonstrated at the site of Fontfaurès (Barbaza et ai., 1991).

None of these cultures correlate with relief or terrain types, ail of which had analogous types of forest with The same game species. (The apparent absence of sites of this period on the thick loess soifs of the Hesbaye plateau in middle Belgium and in The Lower Rhineland could be the result of intensive plowing and erosion.) Lack of flint was mitigated in the Ardennes as in Brittany by importation from neighboring regions and, sometimes, by the use of inferior-quality materials. Rivers sometimes played The rote of frontiers: the Seine separated The Northern and Southern Tardenoisian, The Oise separated the lN orthern Tardenoisian from The Somme Culture. But they could also unify: The Ardennian developed within The basin of The Meuse as it pushed The Northem Tardenoisian southward into The Aisne and Marne basins, while The Sambre-Meuse trench to the north was a limit for The Ardennian. The Beaugencian occupied The middle valley of The Loire, but its extension to The east as far as the Yonne department (Violot, 1994), if confirmed, would minimize the influence of rivers in this case. Likewise, The Saône group was centered on that river but was delimited to the south at its confluence with the middle course of the Rhône.

THE RECENT STAGE OF THE EPIPALEOLITHIC

The recent stage began a little before The Atlantic climatic phase. Typical trapezes and Montbani-style débitage diàused very rapidly throughout ail of Europe, with the exception of a few hold-outs je.g., The Beaugencian and Ardennian, the former of which nevertheless adopted in their own way the essential technical characteristics of The new weapons (e. g., larger points) and particular retouching techniques that they applied to their traditional microliths). The rapidity of the spread of The trapeze projectile point testifies to the density of open social relations among related cultures and to the irrelevance of environmental diàerences to this phenomenon. So fast was their spread, that it has been hard to establish the point of origin of trapezes, since radiocarbon dates for their appearance are the same from the Ukraine to The Périgord: 5850 BC (uncal.) or three centuries before the climatic change. Righthand lateralization (asymmetry) of points to the North of the Seine in the Nortbern Tardenoisian (with 80% frequency) can be shown only to bave started in Belgium, where the 'fad' began a little earlier in time among invasively retouched points (Rozoy, 1978 (p. 907)). We do not know the reasons for this development, although one can presume it to bave been related to some improvement in propulsion (perhaps The development of The stronger recurved bow?)

The derelopment of trapezes beforce The climatic changes to more, humid Atlantic conditions eflectively excludes any influence of the latter phenomenon on the former. And their rapid adoption over vast areas shows that The invention was not tied to any particular terrain, game or other environmental factors. Point types from The middle stage persisted for up to a millennium, depending on each culture, although some did changea bit, and The trapezes only replaced them gradually,a fact which stresses The importance of cultural continuity in each region. But several indices show that these 'old style' points were losing the central rotes that they had once played in Epipaleolithic weaponry, especially, as their modes of fabrication were changing (Rozoy, 1978 (p. 506)). The dilierent varieties of trapezes, which were used dilierently (Rozoy, 1978 (pp. 498-503)) allowed these new forms to assume ail The functional rotes of The old types. The use of notched (Montbani) blades was less widely diliused, and in a very unequal fashion among cultures. They were precocious in the Tardenoisian zones (where they probably originated), later to the south of the Seine despite a similar set of environments, and rejected by the Ardennian (which also rejected trapezes) in schist and limestone hill country and by the Beaugencian on The silt-covered plains.
Trapezes only penetrated fate into the Lvnburgian of The north on sandy plains like those of the Tardenoisian. This is yet one more case of cultural indilierence to substratum conditions.

The social territories remained essencially the same (Fig. 5B) with maintenance of stylistic particularities allowing us to perceive evidence for continuity within given areas over millennia. The division of The Tardenoisian became complete in this period, with very dilierent use of The Montbani blades and bladelets in The two daughter cultures. The break had nothing to do with climate, but rather with internai demographic and social factors. The south-Breton group became further differenciated at this time in The form of the Teviecian, distinguishing itself now from The Retzian. Cultural divisions are suggestive of population growth, despite The fact that some bave considered The closed Atlantic forests to be less than optimal for humans because they were dense and dark, with supposedly little fodder available for herbivores given a lessened understory and fewer clearings. In fact, however, the virgin forest, which bas never been felled, is not uniform like modern (sivicultivated) forests, with trees ail of The same size and age. In natural forests, natural faits of old or sick trees and storms that fell trees of ail ages create openings here and there, with copses favorable for cervids. In any event, it was under the densely wooded conditions of the Atlantic that more cultural divisions than ever were created and sites are at least as numerous as in The earlier stage. As in The middle stage, there are small sites (e.g., Rochers d'Auliargis) and 'bigger' ones (e.g., Bergumermeer, Lommel, Zonhoven, Allée Tortue, Les Hauts de Lutz) on a wide diversity of types of terrain. Population levels were at least as high or higher than before. If, as is probable, trapezes represent technical progress, then they could have helped causea slight demographic expansion.

THE FINAL STAGE OF THE EPiPALEOLITHIC

the final stage civer most of the 5th millennium BC (uncal.). Point types inherited from The Middle Stage bave by now moie or less totally disappeared (except for a few 'mistletoe leafs', invasively retouched points in the Tardenoisian and circle segments in The recent Beaugencian). There is, however, a considerable diversity of weapon tips: added to (or substituting for) those of The Upper Stage are derived types which are no longer really trapezessensu stricto. These types developed in situ and include points with inverse flat retouch, often with semi-abrupt retouch and retention of the piquant trièdre from the microburin snap. Some are still trapezes, others are not, such as large scalene triangles with inverse flat retouch (Belloy arrowheads), spurred tips, Sonchamp points or Bavans points. In The Beaugencian The same technical characteristics were applied to Tardenois points, which no longer look like The originals however. There are still both small sites (Belloy-Plaisance, Ruiterskuil) and a few very large ones (e.g., Allée Tortue at Fère-en-Tardenois (Rozoy and Slachmuylder, 1990)). There are thus no objective reasons to suppose The existence of larger bands than before. Contacts and exchanges among bands continued to be intensive, and testify to The unity of each culture. Limits among tribes continued to be permeable, however, with inventions and lads spreading across ail of Europe, irrespective of The great diversity of environments involved. It is presently impossible to pinpoint The points of origin of The fast-spreading 'fads'.

All of these stylistic developments, with no ballistic consequences, represent no change in lifeways, but do ease our task in perceiving cultural territories. There are indeed a few Belloy arrowheads in the Tardenoisian of Allée Tortue Xb, but almost no trapezes in the final stage of the Somme Culture. The spurred weapon tips of The Retzian do not appear in The Teviecian, etc. The essential dilierences concerning the common tool types (e.g., endscrapers, retouched flakes, perforators, etc.), and weapon tip percentages remain about The same as before, with only some qualitative changes.

There are no marked changes in social territories vis-à-vis The Late Stage (Fig. 5C), except in the case of The now 'neolithized' Mediterranean coast, with its Cardial culture overlain on The local CasteInovian Mesolithic as a result of externat factors (notably the importation of sheep which had not existed in the region before). Curiously, the 'pure' evolved Castelnovians in The interior of Provence seem to ha>e broken off relations with their 'neolithized cousins', as there are no further imports of the Colunibella rustica shell from the coast (Rozoy, 1978 (p. 299 )). They in their own turn were 'neolithized'a millennium later, building on their locally evolved technical base, at The sanie time as The test of France. This time lag does suggest a case of environmental determinism: The coast seems to have been more favorable than the interior for The early transition to food production.

The separation of The Teviecian from the Retzian became marked in the final stage of the Epipaleolithic.
The number of cultures seems to increase, and especially the individuality of each one comes more sharply into focus, without any influences from The Neolithic.
A perfect knowledge of each landscape and growing group identification combined to play a signifie÷int foie in the rapid process of acculturation to the Neolithic that was to occur in The 4th millenniuni BC.

CONCLUSIONS

The environment was not without ellect on The life of hunters: one cannot hunt reindeer during the Boreal when there are none, for example. Changes in gaine imposed by The reigning biocenosis je.g., boar more common in Preboreal, red deer more abundant in Atlantic) do not change lifeways very much and do trot influence human social territories at ail. Changes in industry are not due to climate changes, but rather to technical inventions having to do with hunting that are independent of The environment and that are responses to germanent pressure exerted on hunters by their surroundings. The Magdalenian manner of hunting determined by The use of the atl-atl and dart (with large herd drives using cul-de-sacs or ambushes at water-crossings) did not permit people to inhabit more than one quarter of The land surface of France.

The development of the bow and arrow had an immediate consequence: use of The whole territory. This continued despite the retum of the cold in Dryas vI and then during the climatic fluctuations of The Holocene. The various social consequences of this invention took 1000 yr to be fully realized. Social (tribal?) territories in both The Magdalenian and Mesolithic cases covered some 15,000 km2 with 1000-3000 people per territory, since The objective laws of population dynamics permit no less to maintain survival; nor do they permit greater dispersai due to The need to acquire mates or help. The essential dilierences are in The presence of immédiate neighbors, in The significant increase in overall population, with a high degree of knowledge of The local landscapes, and in psychological changes (Rozoy, 199 lb, 1993b, 1994b), which paved The way for the eventual adoption of The food production way of life in The Neolithic.

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LISTE DES FIGURES

TABLE 1. The three changes in Epipalaeolithic ('Mesolithic') industries

Note: All threc inventions began before the increase in The teviperaturc which thej< h:iv.e been said to be derived from: microlithism began in Dryas Il in varions shapes (Magdaleni÷in VI Azilian points, Couze station microliths, Valorguian spindle points, as.o.); bladelet truncating appeared in The Ahrensburgian as soon as ihe beRinning of'Dryas vI and typical trapezes around 7800 (uncalibrated) everywhere in Europe.

Fig. 1.(A) The Magdalenian north of the Loire. Thick fine: edge of the Primary Ardenne Plateau and Rhineland Massif; dashed fine: edge of the chalk limestone region of Champagne; black dots: Magdalenian sites (those in parentheses are either early Magdalenian [Hallines, Farincourt] or doubtful [Alsdorf, Férébrianges]); Open circles: known lithic sources. (B) Magdalenian and Epipaleolithic sites in northern France (after Fagnart, 1993). The apparent concentrations of sites in the Seine and Somme valleys stem from quarrying operations that have been closely monitored by archaeologists.

Fig. 2.(A) Curved-black point sites. Haiching: area of dense Tjongerian finds based on Rozoy (1978) (p. 106), subsequently expanded especially in Belgian Campine according to Vermeersch (1984). German sites net included. (B) Ahrensburgian and other tanged point sites. Hatching: area of dense Ahrensburgian finds. Dots: isolated sites. The German distribution has no doubt been enriched subsequent to publication of Rozoy (1978), but the rest of The map has been updated after Cziesla (1992) and with information from reccnt Mesolithic colloquia. Cross-hatching: area of dense brmsed blade fmds in England; Short vertical fines: bruised blade sites in France (after Fagnart, 1993, 1994; Fagnart and Plisson, 1994; Bodu et al., 1994)

Fig. 3. (A) Sites dating to the end of the Early Stage. Late Preboreal groups are only defined with reference to those of the Middle Stage, which are more abundant. However the differing compositions of mhic indusThes (Fig. 38 and C) show that distinct socle-territorial groupings had already formed. (B) Composition of Tardenoisian and Western indusThes at the end of the Early Stage. Samples: La Brenière = 295 retouched items (Gouraud, 1992); Kerjouanno = v 8 (Rozoy, 1978); Chaville 3 = 130 (Rozoy, 1978); Flamanville = 831 (Lefevre, 1993); Hailles = v 6 (Rozoy sort). The latter is distinguished by the presence of retouched flakes, segments and one invasively retouched point fragment, and by the absence of isosceles triangles. The cumulative percentage graph for Flamanville is distorted by the inclusion of backed bladelets among the arrow tips; isosceles triangles are aise absent here. The fact that the curves for La Brenière and Kerjouanno, on the other hand, and Hailles and Flamanville, on the other, cross, clearly stiggest the existence of regional differences by this time. (C) Composition of Northem indusThes at the end of the Early Stage. Samples: Geldrop vI-2 = 352 retouched items; Les Mazures = 186; Roc-la-Tour = 198 (Rozoy, 1978). These sites are distinguished by the percentages of arrow tips, endscrapers, retouched flakes, truncated, shouldered and basally truncated points, with crossings among the curves that signify the existence of three diflierent social groups that are confirmed in later stages.

Fig. 4. Cultures of the Middle Stage. Satisfactory territorial demarcation is only possible for the northern sector and for Brittany. Orner cultures can only be delimited with reference to their neighbors, which bave net yet been studied in any detail.

Fig. 5. (A) Mesolithic human groups in Brittany (after Kayser, 1989, 1990). Sea level is still somewhat low ( - 40 m in the Preboreal; -10 m in the Recent and Final Epipaleolithic Stages), but the creation of estuaries by post-glacial transgression may have led to the formation of the Western cultures with small territories, especially the Bertheaume industry in Finisterre. The southeastern Brittany group, though as yet poorly defined, probably had a broader extension inland, with a more normal territory size. (B) Culiures of ihe Recent Stage. Kayser (1992) maintains the existence of smaller groupings in Brittany, such as ihe Teviecian. In SE France the nature of the transition between the Montadian and The CasteInov>fan cultures bas Rot been demonstrated, although at Monclus it must have occurred net earlier than the second half of The 6th millennium BC with the appearance of trapezes and a change in microlith manufacturing technique. (C) Cultures of the Final Stage. The only notable changes occur in the Southeast, with the inland spread of the CasteInovian, the 'neolithization'of the coastal zone and the subsequent break in relations between the coastal and interior groups.