Science / Medicine : Remains of Early Paris Excavated

French archeologists have found three canoes and the remains of a home built 6,500 years ago in central Paris, proving that the banks of the Seine River were settled thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Archeologist Michel Fleury said the neolithic era artifacts were discovered on a building site of a new warehouse complex near the Finance Ministry on the Quai de Bercy.

“The oldest layer produced engraved bottles, jugs, polished flint hatchets, paring knives and the remains of bison, beavers, deer and turtles,” Fleury said last week. “Until now, no artifacts from this era had been found in Paris. The prehistory of the capital had always been deduced from findings elsewhere.”

The canoes, 16-foot hollowed tree trunks, were found embedded less than 40 feet below street level. They will be sent to Denmark for preservation and put on display at the site, the Paris city authorities said.