Excavations and Prehistoric Discoveries in France (1940–1944)

Abstract

During these four hard years of German occupation and in spite of hindrances of all kinds—preliminary permits to be obtained, censorship and severe limitations imposed on the liberty of the scientific press—research and the publication of works on our national antiquities have not meanwhile been interrupted. Excavations have been carried on with an activity, which the struggles for liberation during the summer of 1944, have not invariably retarded. The reviews and publications of the learned societies of the departments, although perceptibly reduced in bulk, continued to record discoveries and to print erudite articles. A new documentary review, Gallia: Excavations and Archaeological Monuments of Metropolitan France, was even published for the first time in 1943. Edited under the aegis of the National Centre for Scientific Research, its object is to publish, with the least delay possible, the reports of excavators upon their discoveries. Such results could not have been attained without the co-operation of all archaeologists, editors and printers, in fulfilling a single and imperative duty, namely, to assure the continuity of French archaeology in spite of the uncertainties and distress of the period. This amounted moreover, at the same time to a form of service and was one of the aspects of resistance to the invader. All were thus only following the example, set at the time of the first world war by Camille Jullian, the great historian of Gaul, who then placed his science and his eloquence at the service of his country. The book, dedicated to him by Albert Grenier, is no mere biography; it traces another page of the history and archaeology of contemporary France.