1. Plaine de l’Ain Industrial Park: vast Bronze Age site
On more than 350 hectares of the Plaine de l’Ain Industrial Park (PIPA), in Saint-Vulbas and Blyes (Ain), the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) carried out twenty-one diagnostics and fifteen excavations. These operations revealed a major protohistoric ensemble, centered on a vast necropolis and occupations from the Bronze Age (around 2150 to 800 BC). Archaeologists have identified more than 1,000 structures, including a large 20-meter-long pole building dating from the Early Bronze Age, sub-rectangular burial enclosures from the Middle Bronze Age, and numerous cremation burials from the Late Bronze Age. The diversity of funerary practices and the continuity of occupation make this site a reference for understanding the protohistoric societies of the Rhône valley.
2. Carhaix-Plouguer (Finistère): six millennia of human occupation
In Carhaix-Plouguer, a preventive excavation of 12 hectares by Inrap revealed more than six millennia of human occupation, from the final Neolithic to Antiquity. Archaeologists discovered a Neolithic house, an Early Bronze Age necropolis with around forty burials, Early and Late Bronze Age habitats, as well as a Roman road and a vast agricultural establishment from the 1st century AD. AD, with barns, drying rooms and millstones. This site is major because it offers a continuous sequence of occupation and uses of the territory. It allows us to study the evolution of lifestyles, funeral practices and spatial organization since the first farmers.
3. Around Grenoble (Isère): place of execution and burial pits from the 16th century
Near Grenoble, Inrap archaeologists have exhumed the remains of a public execution site from the 16th century, accompanied by ten burial pits containing at least 32 bodies. The remains discovered on this site, interpreted using archives dated 1544-1547, confirm the existence of a square brick structure measuring approximately 8 meters on a side, supporting up to eight simultaneous hangings. Among the bodies identified are Protestants like Benoît Croyet and Charles Du Puy Montbrun, executed during religious repressions of the 16th century. The remains, sometimes mutilated and hastily buried, show that the punishment was often prolonged after death. This is a rare insight into the judicial and social practices of punitive justice in the Ancien Régime.
Subrectangular burial enclosures from the Middle Bronze Age (Lot 10 phase 1 site) discovered in the Plaine de l’Ain Industrial Park (PIPA).
© Inrap
4. Gagny (Seine-Saint-Denis): two millennia of urban development
In Gagny, a preventive excavation of 3,700 m² carried out by Inrap ahead of the redevelopment of the city center bears witness to local urban development from the early Middle Ages to today. Research highlights continuous occupation since Late Antiquity, with Merovingian and Carolingian traces. There are also medieval and Renaissance remains (foundations, cellar, wells), as well as the successive developments of the Ferrari castle (17th century) and its park. Archaeologists also uncovered an ancient thoroughfare and a fossilized street connecting urban axes, as well as more recent soil levels, ditches and structures.
5. Caen (Calvados): medieval fortifications
In Caen, a preventive excavation carried out on Boulevard Maréchal-Leclerc uncovered a monumental section of the medieval rampart of Île Saint-Jean, until now known only from old texts and plans. This wall is more than 20 meters long, with a thickness of 3 meters and is preserved up to 3.50 meters high. This is part of the defensive wall possibly built around 1346, after the city was captured by the English during the Hundred Years’ War. Archaeologists also uncovered several successive masonry and embankments from the 13th to the 19th century, abundant furniture (ceramics, coins, everyday objects) and medieval graffiti representing a sailboat. This discovery offers a rare testimony of defensive structures in an ancient city center.
6. island of Sein (Brittany): Neolithic underwater wall
Maritime archaeologists have identified a stone wall off the coast of the island of Sein more than 7,000 years old, now submerged under around 9 meters of water in the Atlantic. The structure, approximately 120 meters long, almost 20 meters wide and made of intentionally arranged blocks and monoliths, is believed to have been built between 5800 and 5300 BC. At this time, sea levels were much lower and the coastline much larger. It could be a structure linked to organized coastal Mesolithic or Neolithic societies, perhaps a fish trap or some sort of seawall against the water. This stone wall reveals an advanced level of technical know-how and collective coordination at the dawn of the Mesolithic-Neolithic.
