From Palaeolithic Caves to Roman Villas: Brittany's Distant Past

Abstract

As one of the peripheral regions of Europe, the Armorican peninsula is often believed to have been a cultural backwater, hardly ever reached by the major cultural and technological changes taking place in late prehistoric continental cultures. For people living away from the ocean, the latter is often seen as an obscure threat, an awful obstacle, a liquid wall isolating from one another continental masses and cultures. But, as a matter of fact, the ocean was always used as a passageway, a link between countries bordering the Atlantic, from the south of the Iberian Peninsula to the North Sea. In this vast sea-space, the Armorican landmass, situated at the articulation between two maritime zones, the Bay of Biscay to the south, the Irish Sea and the Channel to the north, was a place where various cultural influences would come into contact and interbreed. Far from being a dead end, it was perfectly integrated, during the various phases of its long history, in the major cultural and technological currents running along the western facade of Europe.