Hommes et climats au Paléolithique supérieur dans le bassin de la Somme (France)

Abstract

Nearly 40 years of intensive research conducted in the Somme basin has demonstrated the discontinuity in the human occupation of the area during the Upper Palaeolithic. The northern position of the Somme basin within the loessic region appears to be an explanatory factor in this discontinuity, the nature of which increasingly appears related to climate and environmental factors. Archaeological occupations have been systematically attributed to phases of warming or climate improvement. On the other hand, an absence of human occupation has been consistently observed during the coldest periods. The extreme poverty of the biomass contemporary to the loessic deposits of the Upper Pleniglacial could partly explain this discontinuity specific to the far northwest of Europe (southern England, northern Belgium, Netherlands, and northern Germany). Although only 150 or 200km away, the southern Paris Basin, which is located on the fringes of the loessic region of northern France and Normandy, presents a more continuous human occupation, which appears to have benefitted from more favourable conditions.