Franco-Cantabrian region

The Franco-Cantabrian region (also Franco-Cantabric region) is a term applied in Archaeology and History to refer to an area that stretches from Cantabria, in northern Spain, to Provence in southeastern France. It includes the southern half of France and the northern strip of Spain looking at the Bay of Biscay (known as Cantabrian Sea in Spanish, hence the name).

This region shows intense homogeneity in the prehistorical record and possibly was the region of Europe with the densest population of humans during the Late Paleolithic.

Successively, the region experienced the Chatelperronian, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, and post Azilian geometric cultures, with their respective cultural expressions, noticeably the most famous mural art. Solutrean, Magdalenian, and Azilian cultures evolved locally in this area.

The region may have been a major refugium for Paleolithic peoples during the Last Glacial Maximum, apparently playing a major role as source for the repopulation of Europe after that extremely cold period ended.

From an archaeological viewpoint, Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel has argued that "there are grounds for considering that the Aquitaine and French-Cantabrian refuge zone, may have been the principal source of Late Glacial re-colonization". His demographic simulations, based in archaeological data, suggest that it was the most densely populated region of Europe through all the Upper Paleolithic. Kieran O'Hara has suggested in his book Cave Art and Climate Change that climate controlled the Franco-Cantabrian cave depictions.

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