Seasonal migration in South-west France during the late glacial period

It has long been accepted that mobility was a factor in human life in Quaternary SW France, but debate continues as to the purpose, extent, direction, frequency and regularity of the movements. Several different types of evidence are relevant to the problem, and while some scholars have come to rather vague conclusions concerning “occasional forays” or “exchange systems”, others have taken up a firm position after analysis of only one body of data. A reappraisal of all aspects of the problem, in the light of all the evidence available from the region, in fact leads to only one satisfactory hypothesis: that of long-distance seasonal migration by both man and game.Only the reindeer-dominated sites of SW France will be discussed here, as it is from these that the migrations were the most necessary and the most extensive. Movements from other sites, such as those where a horse-dominated economy was practised, would probably have been rather shorter owing to the restricted migration undertaken by the staple resources.