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22-562: The original artifacts were collected from road construction sites on the Somme river near Abbeville by a French customs officer, Boucher de Perthes . He published his findings in 1836. Subsequently, Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet (1821–1898), professor of prehistoric anthropology at the School of Anthropology in Paris , published (1882) " Le Prehistorique, antiquité de l'homme ", in which he

44-457: A million casualties. Private A. S. Bullock in his wartime memoir recalled his first sight of it in early April 1918: "... we reached a small place called Hengest sur Somme . The train stopped and we descended. There in front of us was a muddy, sluggish and somewhat narrow stream, which has given its name to one of the most awful battles in history – the Somme." The great battles that finally stopped

66-690: Is a river in Picardy , northern France . The river is 245 km (152 mi) in length, from its source in the high ground of the former Arrouaise Forest  [ fr ] at Fonsomme near Saint-Quentin , to the Bay of the Somme , in the English Channel . It lies in the geological syncline which also forms the Solent . This gives it a fairly constant and gentle gradient where several fluvial terraces have been identified. The Somme river

88-543: The Canal de la Somme began in 1770 and reached completion in 1843. It is 156 km (97 mi) long, beginning at St.Simon and opening into the Bay of the Somme. From St.Simon to Froissy (near Bray sur Somme, south of Albert), the canal is alongside the river. Thence to the sea, the river is partly river and partly navigation. From Abbeville , it is diverted through the silted , former estuary , to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme , where

110-723: The Elsterian Stage of the Pleistocene Ice Age, which covered central Europe between 478,000 and 424,000 years ago. The Abbevillian is a phase of Olduwan that occurred in Europe near, but not at, the end of the Lower Palaeolithic (2.5 mya. – 2,500,000 years ago). Those who adopt the Abbevillian scheme refer to it as the middle Acheulian, about 600,000-500,000 years ago. Geologically it occurred in

132-586: The Leakey family discovered older (yet similar) artifacts at Olduvai Gorge (a.k.a. Oldupai Gorge), starting in 1959, and promoted the African origin of man. Olduwan (or Oldowan ) soon replaced Abbevillian in describing African and Asian paleoliths. The term Abbevillian is still used, but it is now restricted to Europe. The label, however, continues to lose popularity as a scientific designation. Mortillet had portrayed his traditions as chronologically sequential. In

154-624: The Marais de l'Île is a nature reserve in the town of St.Quentin. The traditional market gardens of Amiens , the Hortillonages are on this sort of land but drained. Once exploited for peat cutting , the fen is now used for fishing and shooting In 2001, the Somme valley was affected by particularly high floods, which were in large part due to a rise in the water table of the surrounding land. Catchment area 5,560 km (2,150 sq mi). Daily flow rates compared with mean rates for

176-772: The Middle Pleistocene , younger than about 700,000 years ago. It spanned the Günz-Mindel interglacial period between the Günz and the Mindel , but more recent finds of the East Anglian Palaeolithic push the date back into the Günz, closer to the 700,000 ya mark. The Abbevillian culture bearers are not believed to have evolved in Europe, but to have entered it from further east. It was thus preceded by

198-574: The 500,000 ya mark. Non-handaxe sites are often the same sites as handaxe sites, the difference being one of time, or, if geographically different, have no discernible spatial pattern. The physical evidence is summarized in the table below Note that the dates assigned vary widely after 700,000 ya and, except where substantiated by scientific methods, should be viewed as tentative and on the speculative side. Somme (river) The Somme ( UK : / s ɒ m / SOM , US : / s ʌ m / SUM , French: [sɔm] )

220-558: The Abbevillian, early Palaeolithic hominins used cores; in the Acheulian, flakes. Olduwan tools, however, indicate that in the earliest Palaeolithic, the distinction between flake and core is less clear. Consequently, there also is a tendency to view Abbevillian as an early phase of Acheulian. The Abbevillian type site is on the 150-foot terrace of the River Somme . Tools found there are rough chipped bifacial handaxes made during

242-615: The German advance in the Spring Offensive of 1918 were fought around the valley of the Somme in places like Villers Bretonneux , which marked the beginning of the end of the war. The tributaries listed comprise: Left tributaries: Right tributaries: The river is characterized by a very gentle gradient and a steady flow. The valley is more or less steep-sided but its bottom is flat with fens and pools. These characteristics of steady flow and flooded valley bottom arise from

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264-575: The campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Crécy . Crossing the river also featured prominently in the campaign which led to the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. In 1636, a Spanish army led by Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano , crossed the Somme defeating a French army during the Thirty Years War threatening Paris. Most famously, the Battle of the Somme , during World War I , lasted from July to November 1916 and resulted in more than

286-571: The earlier Olduwan of Homo erectus, and the Upper Acheulian , of which Clactonian and Tayacian are considered phases, supplanted it. The Acheulian there went on into the Levalloisian and Mousterian are associated with Neanderthal man. To avoid the question of what culture name should be used to describe European artifacts, some, such as Schick and Toth, refer to "non-handaxe" and "handaxe" sites. Handaxes came into use at about

308-793: The maritime canal, once called the canal du Duc d'Angoulême enters the English Channel. The St Quentin Canal , famous for the 1918 battle , links the Somme to northern France and Belgium and southward to the Oise . The Canal du Nord also links the Somme to the Oise, at Noyon, thence to Paris. Rivers in France This is a list of rivers that are at least partially in France. The rivers are grouped by sea or ocean. The rivers flowing into

330-461: The region. The modern department of Somme was named after this river. The Somme has featured prominently in several military campaigns. In 1066, the invasion fleet of William the Conqueror assembled in the Bay of the Somme, at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme . The river also featured in the 1346 withdrawal of Edward III of England 's army, which forded the river at the Battle of Blanchetaque during

352-510: The river's being fed by the ground water in the chalk basin in which it lies. At earlier, colder times, from the Günz to the Würm (Beestonian or Nebraskan to Devensian or Wisconsinian) the river has cut down into the Cretaceous geology to a level below the modern water table . The valley bottom has now therefore, filled with water which, in turn, has filled with fen . This picture , of

374-585: The sea (or into a desert or lake), or as rivières when they flow into another river. The fleuves are shown in bold . For an alphabetical overview of rivers of France, see the category Rivers of France . The rivers in this section are sorted north-east (Netherlands) to south-west ( Calais ). The rivers in this section are sorted east ( Calais ) to west ( Brest ). The rivers in this section are sorted north ( Brest ) to south (Spain). The rivers in this section are sorted west (Spain) to east (Italy). The rivers in this section are listed counterclockwise around

396-447: The sea are sorted along the coast. Rivers flowing into other rivers are listed by the rivers they flow into. Some rivers (e.g. Sûre/Sauer) do not flow through France themselves, but they are mentioned for having French tributaries. They are given in italics . For clarity, only rivers that are longer than 50 km (or have longer tributaries) are shown. In French, rivers are traditionally classified either as fleuves when they flow into

418-400: The source of the Somme in 1986, shows it when the water table had fallen below the surface of the chalk in which the aquifer lies. Here, the flow of water had been sufficient to keep fen from forming. This satellite photograph shows the fenny valley crossing the chalk to the sea on the left. The sinuous length at the centre of the picture lies downstream from Péronne . One of the fens,

440-409: The time of year at Hangest-sur-Somme (m³/s). Catchment area 4,835 km (1,867 sq mi). 1993 . 1995 . 1997 . 1998 . 1999 . 2001 . 2003 . 2005 . Mean flow rates monthly and daily at Péronne (m³/s). Catchment area 1,294 km (500 sq mi). 1987 . 1989 . 1991 . 1992 . 1993 . 1995 . 1996 . 1997 . 1999 . 2000 . 2001 . 2002 . 2003 . 2004 . 2005 . The construction of

462-585: Was known in ancient times as Samara . It presumably means 'the summery river', that is to say the 'quiet river', stemming from an adjective * sam-aro - ('summery') itself derived from the Celtic root * samo - ('summer'). The city of Amiens was also known as Samarobriva (Gaulish: 'bridge on the Samara'). It is attested by the early 1st century BC as the chief town of the Ambiani , an ancient Gallic tribe of

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484-494: Was the first to characterize periods by the name of a site. Chellean included artifacts discovered at the town of Chelles , a suburb of Paris. They are similar to those found at Abbeville. Later anthropologists substituted Abbevillian for Chellean, the latter of which is no longer in use. Abbevillian tool users were the first archaic humans in Europe, classified as either late Homo erectus as Homo antecessor or as Homo heidelbergensis . The label Abbevillian prevailed until

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