The Romans made the region the first Roman province beyond the Alps and called it Provincia Romana , which evolved into the present name. Until it was ruled by the counts of Provence from their capital in Aquae Sextiae today Aix-en-Provence , then became a province of the kings of France. While the region has been part of France for more than years, it still retains a distinct cultural and linguistic identity, particularly in the interior of the region. The region got its name in Roman times, when it was known as Provincia Romana , simply "the Roman province".
The coast of Provence has some of the earliest known sites of human habitation in Europe. Primitive stone tools dating back 1 to 1. The Paleolithic period in Provence saw great changes in the climate. Two ice ages came and went, and the sea level changed dramatically. At the beginning of the Paleolithic, the sea level in western Provence was meters higher than today. By the end of the Paleolithic, it had dropped to to metres below the sea level today. The cave dwellings of the early inhabitants of Provence were regularly flooded by the rising sea or left far from the sea and swept away by erosion.
The changes in the sea level led to one of the most remarkable discoveries of signs of early man in Provence. In , a diver named Henri Cosquer discovered the mouth of a submarine cave 37 metres below the surface of the Calanque de Morgiou near Marseille. The entrance led to a cave above sea level.
Inside, the walls of the Cosquer Cave are decorated with drawings of bison, seals, auks, horses and outlines of human hands, dating to between 27, and 19, BC. The end of the Paleolithic and beginning of the Neolithic period saw the sea settle at its present level, a warming of the climate and the retreat of the forests. The disappearance of the forests and the deer and other easily hunted game meant that the inhabitants of Provence had to survive on rabbits , snails and wild sheep.
Once they settled in one place they were able to develop new industries. Inspired by pottery from the eastern Mediterranean, in about BC they created the first pottery made in France. They were farmers and warriors, and gradually displaced the earlier pastoral people from their lands. They were of uncertain origin; they may have been the descendants of the indigenous Neolithic peoples.
