France

===Pre-6th century BC===
{{Main|Prehistory of France}}
The oldest traces of [[archaic humans]] in what is now France date from approximately 1.8&nbsp;million years ago.<ref name="Jean Carpentier 1987 p.17">Jean Carpentier (dir.), François Lebrun (dir.), Alain Tranoy, Élisabeth Carpentier et Jean-Marie Mayeur (préface de Jacques Le Goff), Histoire de France, Points Seuil, coll. " Histoire ", Paris, 2000 (1re éd. 1987), p. 17 {{ISBN|978-2-02-010879-9}}</ref> [[Neanderthal]]s occupied the region into [[Upper Paleolithic|the Upper Paleolithic]] era but were slowly replaced by ''[[Homo sapiens]]'' around 35,000 BC.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jenkins |first=C. |date=2011 |title=A Brief History of France |publisher=[[Little, Brown Book Group]] |chapter=Cro-Magnon Man, Roman Gaul and the Feudal Kingdom|page=6|isbn=978-1849018128|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=urOeBAAAQBAJ}}</ref> This period witnessed the emergence of [[cave painting]] in the [[Dordogne]] and the [[Pyrenees]], including at the famous [[Lascaux]] site, dated to {{Circa|18,000}} BC.<ref name="Jean Carpentier 1987 p.17"/> At the end of the [[Last Glacial Period]] (10,000 BC), the climate became milder;<ref name="Jean Carpentier 1987 p.17"/> from approximately 7,000 BC, this part of Western Europe entered the [[Neolithic]] era, and its inhabitants became [[Sedentism|sedentary]].

After strong demographic and [[Agriculture|agricultural]] development between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, [[Metal Ages|metallurgy appeared]] at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, initially working gold, [[Chalcolithic|copper]] and [[Bronze Age|bronze]], then later [[Iron Age|iron]].<ref>Carpentier ''et al.'' 2000, pp. 20–24.</ref> France has numerous [[megalith]]ic sites from the Neolithic, including the exceptionally dense [[Carnac stones]] site (approximately 3,300 BC).