δA² Lower paleolithic

First human traces: Homo Erectus (or close)

A million years ago

Chopper (left), striker (right) and auroch femur from the Grotte du Vallonet - Regional Prehistory Museum, Menton

The Grotte du Vallonnet, is a cave located between Monaco and Menton which has revealed bones from twenty-five different species, as well as a rudimentary tooling, matching Oldowayenne culture :

Hammerstone : stone (for a hard hammer; wood otherwise) allowing to cut another stone
Chopper : pebble with one cutting edge resulting from percussion
Flakes : fragments obtained from cutting stones and used to scrape or drill

Scars on bones indicate that they were intentionnally broken, likely to extract marrow from them.

The content of the cave is dated back between 1 million and 1 million 70.000 years ago, which makes it one of the oldest pre-historic sites across Europe.

The cave does not contain human remains. It is believed that it has been used by Homo Erectus or a close species arrived in Europe, such as Homo Antecessor.