Audrey Azoulay, Minister of Culture and Communication, and Thierry Mandon, Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research, are delighted with a major archaeological discovery that has just been made as part of a planned excavation in Bruniquel, in the Tarn-et-Garonne. Potholing elevations (stalactites and stalagmites), ordered by the human hand more than 175,000 years ago by a group of ancient Neanderthals, have been highlighted.
The site of Bruniquel reveals that the first European representatives of Neanderthals would have appropriated deep caves, building there complex structures by means of broken and arranged stalagmites, bringing and maintaining fires. All these remains testify to the complex social organization and the mastery of fire techniques by Neanderthals.
No architectural sites of this nature and magnitude for the Middle Palaeolithic have so far been reported. This makes the site of the Bruniquel cave a unique example for the moment on a global scale.
This discovery was only possible thanks to the existence and mastery of new dating methods based on Uranium-Thorium and by the detection of magnetic anomalies caused by heat, which could indicate the presence of many lighting lights.
This campaign is emblematic of a fundamental work pursued by prehistorian researchers, among whom the French teams are in the very first places, and which, excavation after excavation, study after study, renews in depth our perception of the life of our distant ancestors. With more than 180 decorated caves out of 300 listed around the world, France and its scientific and conservation teams play a leading role.
Audrey Azoulay and Thierry Mandon would like to thank the main players in this innovative research:
- the laboratory «From Prehistory to the Actual: Culture, Environment and Anthropology» (PACEA), associating the CNRS, the University of Bordeaux and the Ministry of Culture and Communication, agreed via the framework agreement Culture/CNRS 2016-2020,
- the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) in Brussels,
- the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE), involving the CNRS, the CEA and the Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines,
- Xi'an University in China,
- the University of Minnesota in the United States,
without forgetting the Caussade Speleological-Archaeological Society, for logistical aspects.
In addition to preventive archaeology, the planned excavation is an archaeological excavation that is part of a national scientific program. It is developed by the representatives of the scientific community in charge of archaeology in France (Service régional de l'archéologie de la Direction régionale des affaires culturelles (DRAC), services d'archéologie municipales, départementaux, etc., CNRS).
In addition to its direct involvement in the PACEA laboratory, the Ministry of Culture and Communication, through its regional archaeological service of the DRAC Midi-Pyrénées-Languedoc-Roussillon, supported and ensured the scientific and technical control of Bruniquel’s archaeological research operations.