The constant presence of man in Paris is recorded from 5000 years BC. Remains of hunting, mammoth bones, and those of deer and reindeer dating from that epoch were discovered in 1886 in a quarry at Beaugrenelle.
Traces of a rural habitat and Neolithic tombs were also unearthed during excavation in the courtyards of the Louvre. Other clues indicate long-term settlements of these first occupants. Knapped flints were found in 1912 in the Place du Châtelet, indicating the presence of a pre-historic workshop. Similarly, objects were found during the excavation of warehouses at Bercy in 1991: construction posts, polished stones, bone tools, ceramics.
An excellent situation:
These itinerant hunters who were the first inhabitants, found in Paris a favourable site for a more permanent settlement.
Paris enjoyed, in effect, a temperate climate all year round, even if – at that time – the climate was different. The topography is flat, with the exception of the surrounding hills of Montmartre (the highest point in Paris at 129 metres), Menilmontant, Chaillot, Belleville and Charonne.
But above all it is the presence of a large river, such as the Seine which determined the presence of the first men in Paris. The Seine is navigable all the year. It forms, with its tributaries (the Aube, the Yonne and above all the Marne and the Oise), a veritable network of rivers, which allowed the first inhabitants to come and go over a wide area. In 1991, five canoes dating from between 3,400 and 4,200 BC were also discovered at Bercy. Thanks to this network, Paris became a river crossroads where commercial exchanges were easily carried out.
In the middle of the Seine, the Ile de la Cité constituted an ideal refuge. A defensive site soon developed there. With banks close at each branch of the Seine, it is the historic heart of Paris. La Cité is not the only island in Paris, but it is the biggest, the most stable and is situated at the easiest crossing place of the river. The Ile St. Louis just beside it, was born of the joining of the two islands in the 16th century.
Text: PJ - Director History Department of www.parisrama.com
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