Aude
| Aude | |
|---|---|
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| Coat of arms of the Aude department | |
| Administration | |
| Region: | Languedoc-Roussillon |
| Prefecture: | Carcassonne |
| Subprefectures: | Limoux Narbonne |
| Arrondissements: | 3 |
| Cantons: | 35 |
| Communes: | 438 |
| President of the General Council: | Marcel Rainaud PS |
| Statistics | |
| Population | Ranked 71st |
| -1999 | 309,770 |
| Population density: | 50/km² |
| Land area¹: | 6139 km² |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km². | |
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Aude (Occitan: Aude) is a department in south-central France named after the Aude River. The local council also calls the department "Cathar Country". It is located in Languedoc-Rousillon. Its prefecture is Carcassonne. Sous-prefectures are in Limuox and Narbonne. France numbers its departements (according to the alphabet mostly). Aude has the number 11.
Today, slightly over 309.000 people live in the department. The most important econnmic activity is wine growing (called viticulture). There is also some industry, and tourism.
[change] Early forms of habitation
A skull was found, and named Homme de Tautavel (Tautavel Man). It was found in a cave on the site called Caune de l'Arago, near Tautavel. The fossils are between 300.000 and 450.000 years old. There are over 80 fragments; the skull belonged to a man in his twenties. He was about 1.65 m, and weighed around 45–55 kg. Other remains are two mandibles, belonging to a woman in her fifties, and to a man, about 20 to 25 years old. It looks like they did not know how to use fire yet. It also looks like they might have been cannibals, or that they preferred to scavenge for food, rather than hunt. Some bones of rhinoceros, horses, wild sheep (called Mouflon), Tahrs (resemble wild goats), Muskox (a type of bovine), deer, and reindeer were found in the cave. There is an ongoing debate if this hominian is directly related to the Neanderthal. If they are not they would be Homines erecti (currently they are classified as H. erectus Tautavelensis). If they are direct predecessors of the Neanderthals, they would be Homo heidelbergensis.
[change] Other websites
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aude |
- (English) Photographs of the Aude Department
- (French) Prefecture website
- (French) Photos of the Aude Department
