PREHISTORY

The current landscape on the entire meander of the Seine was formed during the Pleistocene period which spanned from -2.5 million years to -11700 years. Four so-called ice ages occurred interspersed with non-linear interglacial periods. They have given way to a landscape made up of a plateau with various silty deposits and the creation in the valley of a meander made up of tiered alluvial terraces which will overlap during these different periods when the Seine river will create its bed there. The geological upheavals due to the different stages of warming will successively create the current meander in the Seine valley and on the plateau the two geological depressions that are the Gournay ravine and the false Louvel, sites of the first human settlements.

 

The first human race on Norman soil dates back to the Lower Paleolithic around 450,000 years ago. The oldest traces discovered to date of human passages in the Venablois territory are attested by the soil surveys and the archaeological diagnosis carried out by the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) of Normandy 1 . These are passages of small groups of Neanderthal Homo artisans of the Mousterian culture, the main cultural manifestation from the end of the Middle Paleolithic to around 40,000 years ago. Derived from the homo erectus strain, they will mainly establish themselves on the plateau by occupying three restricted sites. These sites mark temporary and partial outdoor occupations serving more as a meat breaking workshop and small tool production. On this same plateau, another site marks an installation straddling the period of the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic (-10000 to -5000).

 

In the valley two interesting sites are located on two terraces which stand out from the meander of the Seine valley. These sites attest to an occupation of modern man (homo sapiens). It will prevail during the Mesolithic which marks the end of the last great glaciation around -10000 years ago. This is the period when a significant global warming begins. It will be a factor in a gradual change in vegetation, fauna and the evolution of man in his natural environment. This mutation will materialize throughout the Neolithic or “Polished Stone Age”. From this period there is an important site in the valley with the discovery of a pit and the discovery of flint shards in large numbers. Another site with the presence of important lithic furniture.

 

During the Neolithic period, we observe a transfer from a partial occupation of the plateau to an occupation of the terraces near the river which is reformed thanks to the warming during this period. The discovery made by two Venablois near the river of tools dating from the Campignian (around -4500 years) confirms the interest of man on one of the sites of a future hamlet in the village. With the emergence of agriculture, animal husbandry and ceramic production, a new model of civilization and social life introduced many changes in the lifestyles of humans. Man begins to control his environment and initially he will move from the nomadic stage to semi-sedentarization, by the passage from an economy of predation to an economy of production in place with the transformation and evolution of tools.

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1 Lionnel Dumarche (DRAC of Normandy)