The act of war
probably dates
as far back as
man’s origin itself.
Lawrence Keely, anthropologist
-
Illinois University -
Wars: From Prehistory to the 20th Century
Over the centuries and with their swords, they created France ...
Prehistory
It is believed that the first (homo erectus) inhabitants of the piece of land occupied by France today, arrived there during the ancient Paleolithic era, some 1,500,000 years ago.
Relics of their existence are so rare and mostly found only in the Mediterranean zone. Bearing testimony to this historical fact are a few sharpened pebbles which used to be the rudimentary tools used by these early men in hitting, sharpening, cutting, breaking, and executing other life-critical tasks for their daily survival just like their ancestors, the homo habilis, used to do.
Clothed with animal skin, and having no idea about farming, they led a nomadic lifestyle as hunter-gatherers with caves and huts made of branches and stones as their homes. They lived under extremely harsh and precarious conditions with the perpetual danger of being killed by hunger, cold, predators or enemy groups during a fight. They communicated through grunts and onomatopoeia.
They only discovered the usefulness of fire several hundreds of thousands of years later.
It wasn’t until the Paleolithic era, 100000 BC to 10000 BC, that the Neanderthal man and then the Cro-Magnon man came into existence. The Cro-Magnon man was a homo sapiens able to make hand-to-hand fighting weapons such as swords and weapons thrown from a distance such as spears, and also tools like harpoons and hooks using flint and sharpened bones.
Chasseurs -12.000 ans - Musée départemental de Beauvais
Collection PC FNCV
The period 10000 BC to 5000 BC witnessed the discovery of new techniques thanks to which the fabrication of smooth primitive axes, slings, bows and arrows as well as woven cloth and pottery became a reality.
Form 5000 BC to modern times, things evolved rather quite fast with the advent of metals, notably bronze and iron, and the discovery of writing from Mesopotamia . A real civilized society, with its traders, warriors and people involved in various activities, ushered in a new era and, becoming Gaul , it entered into history.