Franco-Cantabrian region

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).

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.

[1] 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".

[2] His demographic simulations, based in archaeological data, suggest that it was the most densely populated region of Europe through all the Upper Paleolithic.

[3] The area became culturally divided between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic subareas during the Neolithic period, losing its homogeneity as the Eastern part strongly incorporated the Cardium pottery culture, while the Western remained less developed (subneolithic).