Human Activity in French Alps Dates Back 8,000 Years

YORK, ENGLAND—Evidence of human activity 8,000 years ago has been found in the French Alps by an international team of archaeologists, who had to trek into remote areas of the Parc National des Eìcrins and climb to more than 300 high-altitude sites. They found Bronze Age structures, traces of Mesolithic hunting camps, and later stone animal enclosures suggesting that people moved their flocks to seasonal pastures. “The Bronze Age buildings we studied revealed the clear development of seasonal pastoralism that appears to have been sustained over many centuries with new enclosures added and evidence of tree clearing to create new grazing land,” said Kevin Walsh of the University of York.