Excavation ages Paris by 3,000 years

Paris's history as a settlement has been extended by more than 3,000 years. An archaeological dig, the findings of which were revealed yesterday, moves the capital's first known human occupation back to 7600BC, in the Mesolithic period between the two stone ages.

An area about the size of a football field on the south-western edge of the city, close to the River Seine, has yielded thousands of flint arrowheads and fragments of animal bone. The site is believed by archaeologists to have been used nearly 10,000 years ago as a kind of sorting and finishing station for flint pebbles washed up on the riverbanks.

Once the dig is complete, the site will be occupied by a plant for sorting and recycling the refuse generated by the two million Parisians of the 21st century.

"You could say that we have come full circle," said Benedicte Souffi, one of the tw o archaeologists in charge of the site.

"Our ancestors were sorting rubbish from usable objects here in 7600BC. We are going to be doing much the same thing on a more elaborate scale. Maybe, there is a lesson there."

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