Traces of human existence are rare in France until about 50,000 BC. Thereafter, beginning with the "Mousterian civilization", they become ever more numerous, with an especially heavy concentration of sites in the Périgord region of the Dordogne, where, near the village of Les Eyzies, remains were discovered of a late Stone Age people, subsequently dubbed "Cro-Magnon". Flourishing from around 25,000 BC, these cave-dwelling hunters seem to have developed quite a sophisticated culture, the evidence of which is preserved in the beautiful paintings and engravings on the walls of the region's caves.

By 10,000 BC human communities had spread out widely across the whole of France. The ice cap receded, the climate became warmer and wetter, and by about 7000 BC farming and pastoral communities had begun to develop. By 4500 BC, the first dolmens (megalithic stone tombs) showed up in Brittany; around 2000 BC copper made its appearance; and by 1800 BC the Bronze Age had arrived in the east and southeast of the country, and trade links had begun with Spain, central Europe and Wessex in Britain.

Significant population shifts occurred, too, at this time. Around 1200 BC the Urnfield people , who buried their dead in sunken urns, began to make incursions from the east. By 900 BC, they had been joined by the Halstatt people who worked with iron and settled in Burgundy, Alsace and Franche-Comté near the principal ore deposits . At some point around 450 BC, the first Celts made an appearance in the region.