Can you hear the gentle crackling of the fire in the hearth and the first notes of the flute rising and falling in the air? With or without a guide, travel back in time and discover our ancestors'daily lives at the Cité de la Préhistoire!
350,000 years of treasures, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the very first Gauls!
Did you know that there are more dolmens in the Ardèche than in Brittany?
How did the people that painted the Chauvet Cave live?
Did the Neanderthals speak?
Let's share the daily life of our ancestors from the Middle Palaeolithic through to the Early Iron Age at The Cité de la préhistoire ! It's a 350,000-year journey where you get to know more about Pre-Neanderthals, Neanderthals and Modern Man: Homo sapiens, and you discover the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, as well as learning about early farming, livestock and metal working.
The prehistorians and archaeologists who designed the museum wanted to create a modern and intuitive exhibition: dig like a real-life archaeologist on our interactive touchscreen tables, come face to face with a cave hyena and, depending on the time of year, discover our Prehistoric activities (fire, flint knapping, spear-throwing).
You'll initially be surprised to find yourself standing in front of prehistoric men and women, who seem to be watching you with amusement, but you'll then step into their world via the medium of sound and 3D animations, surrounded by life size animal specimens and reconstructions of everyday life.
Featuring numerous genuine exhibits that belonged to our ancestors and were discovered in the Ardèche and the north of the Gard, your visit promises to be as fun as it is educational.These collections, which have been declared of national interest, have seen the Cité de la Préhistoire listed as a Musée de France in collaboration with INRAP (French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research), CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), and more.
Objects emanating from over 1500 archeological sites are conserved in the museum collections. These have been digitalized, inventoried, conditioned and classified in order to facilitate research.
The museum receives numerous students and researchers in the fields of prehistory, karstology and paleoenvironmentalogy .The Museum makes its collection (10 000 objects) available for scientific examination and analysis by external researchers
Monthly, we welcome a conference, from September to June, in collaboration with the association les Amis de la Cité de la Préhistoire.
