National Centre for Prehistory

  • Archaeology
  • - France as a whole -
  • All audiences
  • Cultural professionals

Mis à jour le 25.01.2023

The National Centre for Prehistory (CNP) is a research service of the Ministry of Culture. He specializes in the study and conservation of ornate caves and rock art sites.

The missions of the NPC

On the national territory, the National Centre for Prehistory is the referent of the Directorate-General for Heritage and the Sub-Directorate for Archaeology, to which it is attached. He is also involved in several scientific, national and international collaborations. These main missions are:

  • the research in ornate caves of reference (currently, he coordinates the research of Lascaux and Chauvet-Pont d'Arc and participates in many other studies: Cerdagne, Cussac, Fronsac and Teyjat, Gabarnmang and Genyormis in Australia...);
  • conservation and archiving of iconography relating to this field of study (photographs, surveys, cartographies, digital data, 3D models, duplicates of documents resulting from rock art survey operations...);
  • monitoring and scientific advice in the field of study and conservation, in support of the central and decentralized services of the Ministry of Culture;
  • the expertise rock art sites and archaeological objects;
  • training;
  • dissemination and exploitation the results of the research;
  • data management and analysis (SIG Chauvet-Pont d'Arc, 3D models of Lascaux, Font-de-gaume...).

The national competences of the CNP on the conservation of the graphic and photographic archives of the ornate caves have led since 1980 to the creation of a rich reserve of several thousand documents (silver or digital photographs, slides, films, art records...), some of which are available for editing.

LWOP has a rock art resource centre. It is accessible to researchers and students.

The NOC is the founding element of the Joint Research Unit 5199 «From prehistory to the present: culture, environments and anthropology» (Pacea). Her collaborations with national and international heritage services and research units are numerous.

The skills of the teame

They are multiple:

  • geology and geomorphology;
  • monitoring the evolution of the walls and its metrology;
  • the study of the archaeological context of the ornate caves: study of material remains, putting in perspective the parietal art with other forms of symbolic expressions (movable art);
  • the recording and processing of digital information.

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