France and its influences

I think France received 3 main influences after the ice age:

- Firstly the Celtic who arrived from central europe : "Les gaullois"

-Secondly the Roman: influenced the latin language and christianism

-Thirdly The German with the Francs of Clovis from the North.

Your though?

If you want to start with the end of Ice Age, one think is clear, we can't talk about France as an homogeneous region. Taking it as the Roman Gaul, from the Rhin to the Pyrenees and Alps, a reasonable geographical and historical entity, we have the following sequence:

Epi-Paleolithic: Magdalenian culture splits in two "microlithic" cultures: Sauveterre-Tardenois in the north (from the Channel to NW Hungary) and Azilian in the south (from Northern Spain to Liguria). This happens c. 8000 BCE.

Early Neolithic (since 5000): "Gaul" recieves two separate waves of Neolithic difussion (with some localized migration maybe):

• Danubian (Linear pottery) in the NE and North
• Mediterranean (Cardium pottery) in the SE

The Western areas remain apart and only slowly become agricultural. They belong to the Atlantic region of Europe, more deeply related to their paleolithic roots. The North of France and Belgium are mixed areas as well.

Late Neolithic (c. 3500): SE France developes the Chassey culture that shows a clearly more advanced Neolithic economy, with silex mines and stone-tools centers of production. This important culture will influence strongly its Mediterranean neighbours of Switzerland, northern Italy and NE Spain. It breaks apart in some sort of wars.

Early Chalcolithic (since 3000): Most important is the central-western culture of Armorican Megalithism. Related to other Atlantic Megalithic cultures but with many rare peculiarities. Megalithism spreads to all Gaul in diferent dates.

Middle Chalcolithic (c. 2600-2400): Danubians, already divided in several groups, suffer many confuse changes that seem to me like inter-tribal conflicts. Some Danubians from North France migrate into West France when Seine-Oise-Maine (Danubian) culture is founded. The pressure of Seine-Oise-Marne over Western France becomes clearer in the following centuries.

Late Chalcolithic (c. 2400-1700): A new local warring culture appears c. 2600 in Dordogne. In the following centuries Artenac culture takes over all the SW and West regions and even goes further to the north up to the Rhin, where a subgroup is created. I understand that these Artenacians are the direct predecessors of Aquitanians and Basques.

    Another importan influence in this phase is the Bell-Beaker pehnomenon that, from its Central European origins, expands into most Western Europe. It's believed they were some kind of merchant guild, as they don't substitute the cultures they appear in.

Bronze Age: Around 1300, the people of Central-European Urnfields culture, believed to be mostly Celts, advance by the west bank of the Rhone into Auvergne and Languedoc. They also march into Belgium and parts of Northern France.

    Since then the Atlantic peoples also adopt Bronze. The Atlantic region center (if this term is appliable) seems to move from Portugal to Britain.

Iron Age: Around 800 BCE Celts and Illyrians adopt the Hallstatt culture, including the first Iron tools and weapons. Some further Celtic expansion happens in this early Iron period.
    C. 600 Marseilles is founded by the Greeks. It will be a major comercial and cultural center since then.
    Since 400 the now Celtic only culture of La T�ne starts a great but gradual expansion. Pre-IE groups such as Aquitanians and Ligurians are dirven back to their historical regions. Their migration into Britain would bring back a new form of religiosity: druidism.

And then, in Ancient History, the major influences were, without doubt Roman and Frankish (Germanic), though other Germanic trbes such as Goths, Burgundians, etc. shouldn't be ignored.

Originally posted by Saka Those ethnies before Celtics invasion were uncivilized and clearly savage.

The Celts were too, and so were the Franks.

You can't talk with such absolute disdain of those peoples: they had some rather interesting advances, particularly Megalithism and all what is around of that cultural phenomenon is very interesting.

Yet they had a problem or two: they don't seem to have been particularly warlike/expansive and all technological advances came via the East, so people in the middle like Celts and, later, Romans had a relative advantage, as they incorporated those advances before we did.

Precisely the phase before Celtic expansion (Chalcolitic and early Bronze) was a period in wich Western Europe was rather advanced: astronomy, architecture (all types of megaliths, fortifications), trade (from Scandinavia to Africa), etc. This relatively ilustrated period ended precisely with the first Celtic migrations (invasions) and these regions wouldn't rise again till the Modern or at least the late Middle Ages. It's impossible to say how much of this cultural recession of the late Bronze and all Iron ages can be blamed to Celts but my instinct tells me that they weren't totally innocent. Pliny talks with surprise of the rich country of Lusitania and how, surprisingly, it was in his time reduced to barbarism. It was a Celtic country then but it hadn't been always that way.

Anyhow, France wasn't any particularly civilized area at any time before Romanization. And, even after it, it remained relatively backwards till the late Middle Ages. But the same can be said of all Atlantic, Central, North and Eastern Europe. Only the Mediterranean region was relatively civilized in those times.

...

Anyhow, "those ethnies" are the same peoples that now make up Western Europe, only that they have changed their language and their names.