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What happens in Europe after 700,000 years? The arrival (or emergence) of bifaces and the Acheulean From 700,000 years ago, new tools appear in Western and Southern Europe, bifaces and large flake tools. They testify to the emergence of new technical behaviors brought by new groups of hominids or the diffusion of new technical ideas, probably from the Near East or Africa where these tools appear from 1.8 Ma. These behaviors are linked to Homo heidelbergensis. These new traditions spread little at first, limited to climatically favorable areas, then develop widely after 500,000 years independently of the climate. The management of space changes, technical strategies become more complex, they gradually announce the Neanderthal mode which emerges around 350,000 years ago. By Marie-Hélène Moncel Director of Research CNRS Department of Prehistory, National Museum of Natural History