Human occupation dating back to prehistory

Inhabited since prehistoric times, the Hague peninsula has been shaped by the women and men who have succeeded. Its many dispersed villages and hamlets still preserve ancient constructions testifying to the social origin of the inhabitants, traditional know-how as well as lifestyles and past economic activities. Its architectural heritage also reflects the richness of its geological subsoil. The sandstones, the arkoses, the shales, the granites or the gneiss used thus make it possible to distinguish such a hamlet of another.

The first uses of the known subsoil go back to the time of hunter-gatherers (200,000 years to 5,000 years before our era)

Soft-free flints and granite pebbles notably collected in Jardeheu and Gélétan are thus dated from the penultimate glacial/interglacial cycle, around 200,000 years (in the Paleolithic).

In addition to the presence of many natural shelters to protect themselves from the prevailing winds, the coast allowed the collection of raw materials in the coastal cords and man to hunt and fish.

In the Mesolithic, between 9,500 and 5,000 years, a sudden warming of the climate (which allows us to enter the interglacial that we know today), results in a radical evolution of biotopes.

The steppe disappears in favor of oily meadows or forests, dominated by oak and hazelnut. The large forest mammals will then dominate, if not the landscape, at least human eating habits.

It is in the average Mesolithic that the Hague territory seems more particularly invested. The best known site is that of Auderville, the Roc de Gîte, located on a coastal promontory. An archaeological excavation made it possible to find the remains of a hut and to discover nearly 1,500 arrows of arrows as well as a lot of more than 600 pebbles.

The original deposit of these materials (red feldspathetic sandstones) is listened to at the site, at the foot of the cliff where clay solifluxion flows include remained fragments of a sandstone vein.

The first architectures date back to the Neolithic (5000 to 2500 BCE) with the transition to agriculture and farming.

The occupations of the territory seem to be linked with silt, fertile land coverage areas, conducive to agriculture. The best characterized site is that of Digulleville "Jardeheu" which has delivered several homes dated 4300-4000 years. The numerous valleys were also frequented by the Neolithic. They were able to constitute privileged circulation axes and represent a very specific ecological niche, with sheltered afforestation, reserves of various resources (fauna, flora and fresh water). The rock shelter of "La Jupinerie" has thus been frequented on several occasions.

What dominates in the Neolithic landscape, however, are the megaliths that have fully used mineral resources for their constructions. Dolmen, covered or stelae. The alley of Vauville, "Les Stones Pouquelée" is one of these emblematic sites.

DIKE HAGUE — The Dick Hague © Arnaud Guérin

Bronze Age

Important identity marker of the Hague territory, the Hague Dike is a fortification of land dated from the final bronze age I (around -1206 / -925). The fortification stands between the municipalities of Digulleville and Beaumont-Hague, for almost 2.7 kilometers, following an east-west axis. It is extended at its west end by the Herquemoulin valley and at the eastern end by the Sabine valley.

This lifting of the earth combined with the natural morphology of the territory from which men of the time were able to take advantage of completely insulating the tip of the Hague of the Cotentin and thus defending the 3,500 hectares which are behind. The Dike Hague then put on several functions: the building served as a border and therefore as a geographical marker of power, to sit the authority of the chiefdom which was at the rear. But it was also and above all was a defensive system.

La Hague, in modern times

During the Middle Ages, wooded areas were more extensive in the region than they are today, which could explain why settlements were dispersed in villages and hamlets, and, above all, concentrated along the coast and in sheltered hollows. Human occupation and settlements from the Early Middle Ages (4th^- 11th^centuries) have left few traces in the landscape of La Hague due to the organic materials used in construction. From the 12th^century , landscapes of grazed or hay meadows and cultivated plots developed in areas where water management was increasingly controlled.

Between the 11th^and13th^centuries , the population increased and the scattered settlements were structured into linear villages. The conflicts of the Hundred Years' War interrupted the demographic and construction boom that had begun in the 13th^century . Following the Hundred Years' War, La Hague experienced two major phases of construction: an initial phase between the 15th^and 16th^centuries , a period of peace between this war and the Wars of Religion, and a second, later phase between the 18th^and the first half of the 19th^centuries .

Default image illustrating the purpose of the page a human occupation which dates back to the prehistory of Geoparc - La Hague — La Laiterie de Gréville. Coll. Part. G. Saillard - Tourp collection

Until the 19th^century , subsistence mixed farming, where most of the produce was consumed locally by the farming family or at least within the village, was dominant, and farm labor was plentiful. Vegetables, fruit trees, and hemp, intended for textile production, were grown in small enclosed gardens adjoining the houses. Beyond these gardens lay cultivated fields, meadows, and pastures.

From the mid-19th^century , the agricultural system transformed and specialized, largely due to the advent of the railway, which allowed for the long-distance transport of produce. Thus, La Hague shifted from subsistence farming to dairy farming. This led to profound changes in the agricultural landscape: arable land was gradually converted into pasture. Farms increased their livestock numbers and began producing butter. Dairy production was therefore significant in La Hague at the end of the 19th^century and remains the leading^agricultural activity today.

A richness of building materials which is expressed in the building of the Hague today

In terms of construction, in the Hague, today, almost each village has its specificity in terms of materials which testifies to the incredible geological diversity of the peninsula. In a relatively close past, many geological formations were exploited for construction purposes: the Ordovician sandstones of Vauville, the conglomerates and Arkose Cambrien used for example in the construction of the port of the Hâble in Omonville-la-Rogu or the Cadomiens and Gneiss Icartians of the Hague, widely used in the local buildings (homes, administrative buildings, chrisons ...).

Anecdotally, other rocks, such as the Faudais microgranite or Herqueville red sandstone have been exploited locally. The roofs were traditionally made of thatched and schists. These schists have a slightly more distant origin, since they come from the ice, from Cherbourg or the slate of Mont Saint-Pierre.

Les Sables des Dunes de Biville were also used until the late 1990s to provide quartz the canopy industry

Today, the natural resources used are produced in careers operating only the conglomerates and arkoses of Cambrian and essentially for the production of aggregates. Only the stone of Omonville is always exploited for construction purposes for buildings.