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