Living History by Polly Thompson- Part 2
Diary of an Archaeologist Palaeolithic sites in the Vezere Valley Vezere Valley, France Tear your hair out all you historians, the Palaeolithic era lasted over 2 million years of human activity and they did not write so there are NO books where they recorded what they did! However they did leave painted scenes in caves and a range of stone tools. Archaeologists excavate these sites and research the evidence to learn how they did live. I begin my archaeologist's diary with the earliest dated site I worked on, a Middle Palaeolithic cave shelter site at Les Eyzies du Tayac, in the Vezere region. Palaeolithic is from the Greek for old - 'palaios', and stone – 'lithic'. It was period when humans used their skills to knap a range of tools from hammers, scrapers, axes, borers and blades, from flint, jasper or churt stone. It is the longest extending period in human prehistory, stretching from the earliest types of hominids in the Lower Palaeolithi...