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The historic French region of Provence, located in the southeast corner of France between the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Rhone River and the upper reaches of the Durance River, was inhabited by Ligures since Neolithic times; by the Celtic since about 900 BC, and by Greek colonists since about 600 BC.〔Musée de'Histoire de Marseille, ''l'Antiquité'' (Catalog of museum), pg. 21, Imprimerie Muncipale, Marseille, 1988〕 It was conquered by Rome at the end of the 2nd century BC and became the first Roman province outside of Italy. From 879 until 1486, it was a semi-independent state ruled by the Counts of Provence. In 1481, the title passed to the Louis XI of France. and in 1486 Provence was legally incorporated into France. Provence has been a part of France for over 400 years, but the people of Provence, particularly in the interior, have kept a cultural identity that persists to this day.〔Eduouard Baratier (editor), Histoire de la Provence, Editions Privat, Toulouse, 1990, Introduction.〕 == Prehistoric Provence== The coast of Provence has some of the earliest sites of human habitation known in Europe. Primitive stone tools were found in the Grotte du Vallonnet, near Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, between Monaco and Menton, dating to between 1 million and 1.050 million years BC.〔Henry de Lumley, ''La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes europeens'', pg. 122〕 The excavations at Terra Amata in Nice found signs of an encampment on a prehistoric beach, with traces of some of the earliest fireplaces found in Europe, dating to about four hundred thousand BC.〔See Henry de Lumley, ''La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes européens''; also see Musée d'historie de Marseille, ''L'Antiquité'', (Catalog of the Museum of History of Marseille), pg. 13.〕 Tools dating to the Middle Paleolithic (300,000 BC) and Upper Paleolithic (30,000-10,000 BC) were discovered in the Observatory Cave, in the Jardin Exotique of Monaco.〔See site of the Museum of Archaeology and the Exotic Garden of Monaco.〕 Tools found in the Grotte du Lazaret near Nice date to between 130,000 and 170,000 BC.〔(Max Escalon de Fonton, ''L'Homme avant l'histoire'', pg. 15.)〕 The inhabitants of Provence during the paleolithic age lived in caves or in huts made of branches or covered with animal skins. Evidence found at the Grotte du Vallonnet shows they were more scavengers than hunters, using their tools to scrape meat from carcasses of bison, deer, rhinoceros, horses and other game killed by saber-toothed tigers, tigers, panthers and other predators.〔Lumley, ''La Grande Histoire des premiers europeens'', pg. 125.〕 They endured the arrival and departure of two ice ages, which caused dramatic changes to the climate, vegetation and even the sea level.〔At the beginning of the paleolithic period, the sea level in western Provence was 150 meters higher than it is today. By the end of the paleolithic, it had dropped 100 to 150 meters lower than today's sea level. The cave dwellings of the early inhabitants of Provence were inundated by the rising sea or left far from the sea and swept away by erosion (see Escalon de Fonton, ''L'Homme avant l'histoire'', pg). 16-17〕 In 1985, a diver named Henri Cosquer discovered the mouth of a submarine cave 37 meters below the surface of the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille. Inside, the walls of the Cosquer Cave are decorated with drawings of bisons, seals, penguins, horses and outlines of human hands, dating to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC.〔Aldo Bastié, ''Histoire de la Provence'', Editions Ouest-France, 2001〕 Beginning in about 8,500 BC, at the end of the Neolithic period, the climate of Provence began to warm again.〔Musée d'histoire de Marseille, ''L'Antiquite'' (Catalog of the Museum of History of Marseille, pg. 13〕 The sea rose gradually to its present level, and the forests began to retreat. The disappearance of the forests and the deer and other large game meant that the inhabitants of Provence had to survive on rabbits, snails and wild sheep. In about 6000 BC, the Castelnovian people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues, were among the first people in Europe to domesticate wild sheep, which allowed them to stay in one place and to develop new industries. Inspired by imported pottery from the eastern Mediterranean, in about 6000 BC they created the first pottery to be made in France.〔Escalon de Fonton, ''L'Homme avant l'histoire'', pg). 16-17〕 At about the same time, another wave of new settlers from the east, the Chasséens, arrived in Provence. They were farmers and warriors, and gradually displaced the pastoral people from their lands. They were followed in about 2500 BC by another wave of settlers, also farmers, known as the Courronniens, who arrived by sea and settled along the coast of what is now the Bouches-de-Rhone department.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of Provence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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