Location Map for Serre de l'Homme

Serre de l'Homme is situated at the western extreme of the Fournel Valley which runs west from Argentière-la-Bessée in the Ecrins massif.

View from the east towards Serre de l'Homme

General plan of the Serre de l'Homme area

This year, Serre de l'Homme X was excavated (situated on the northern foot of the moraine slope).

Preparing for coring

One week prior to the excavation the JurAlpe project (a group of environmental scientists and archaeologists who collaborate in aspects of French Alpine research) went up to Serre de l'Homme. Fabien Arnaud and his team from the CNRS laboratory, Environnement, Dynamiques et Territoire de la Montagne (Université de Savoie) took a core using their "percussion coring system". Luckilly, a helicopter took the boat and the coring equipement up to site, but we had to carry everything, inlcuding the cores, down...
Two cores were taken, and teams from three different laboratories will study the botanical, chemical and physcial elements from the cores.

Descending the coring tube

Retrieving the core (and the coring team)

Cutting the perspex casing

Releasing water from the empty part of the chamber

A chance encounter with a chamois on our way upto site

Our heavy equipment and tinned food going up by helicopter

Serre de l'Homme X prior to excavation

Serre de l'Homme X is a major structure amongst a series of (thus far) late third and second millennia BC structures situated along a lateral moraine (see plan above). This "enclosure" is situated at the very foot of the moraine on the edge of an occasionally saturated, flat pasture.

The excavation area after de-turfing

Jon Vidal in the external geoarchaeological trench

Early morning view from the shephard's cabin

Tea break on our favourite rock

Early stage of the main trench at Serre de l'Homme X

Emergency Tent Repairs

A fire setting withing the site