RECENT ADVANCES IN FRENCH QUATERNARY PALAEOENTOMOLOGY

Well developped in Britain, Northern Europe and North America, Quaternary Entomology has been strongly neglected in France until the last 15 years. During this period an effort was made to improve our knowledge about insect response to climatic and environmental changes in this country, which is located in a key area at the limit between atlantic, northern european, central european and mediterranean influences, and is marked by a long history of human action on past ecosystems especially in the Mediterranean region . Our work is focused on 5 main objectives: 1/ Reconstruction of palaeoenvironments and palaeoclimates during the Oxygen Isotopic Stage (OIS) 11 (Holsteinian) (Alps, Brittany); 2/ The last climatic cycle from OIS 6 ("Riss") to OIS 2 (Upper Pleniglacial) (Grande Pile in north-eastern France); 3/ The Late-glacial (Massif Central, Pyrénées, Paris Basin); 4/ The Holocene and the impact of human action on the tree-line in high altitude regions (Alps, Pyrénées); 5/ Study of human action on palaeoenvironments from the Neolithic to the Middle-Ages (Many archaeological sites from southern to norhern France). Many of these works were conducted in synergy with palynology, and reveal the complementarity between both disciplines.