TERRA AMATA

TERRA AMATA

TERRA AMATA


Between past and present, between
fiction and reality, it is our beloved land
It lays on the west slope of Mount Boron
between boulevard Carnot and Corniche
André de Joly, between the Harbour and
the “Castel des Deux Rois” park. The
name was supposedly given to the place
by some English people who settled there
on their way back from India, discovering a
landscape that would console them of their
“Paradise Lost”.
“Terra Amata” is the title of JMG Le Clézio’s
fourth novel published in 1967. Jean-Marie
Gustave Le Clézio, a contemporary writer,
was born in Nice. Chancelade, the main
character of his novel, lives in Terra Amata
which is mentioned by the author as follows:
“You cannot escape this country…
You never leave it. It is beauty.” (1)
It is also a complex including a nursery,
a preschool and a primary school, a community
centre, the CEDAC, a public library
and an archaeological museum, the “Terra
Amata Museum”.
The story of the museum starts back in 1966
when a building site started excavating the
slope in view of erecting a block of flats and
thus uncovered archaeological remains. The
scientists were given six months to assess
the interest of the site and to conduct the
necessary salvage excavations. Henry de
Lumley was in charge of the operation. In
order to preserve the abundant finds uncovered,
the Town Hall authorities of the time,
decided to create a museum on the site itself.
The Terra Amata Museum opened ten
years later in 1976.
Soon it appeared that Terra Amata had been
an open air site on the beach, lying today
at the altitude of 26m above modern sea
level. It revealed a high concentration of
artefacts attributed to Acheulan culture,
large mammal bone remains and evidence
of structure: fire structure, huts, etc…
Some researchers, like Henry de Lumley,
concluded that the site contained a series of
superimposed living floors and interpreted
the arrangements of stones at the site as
the foundations of huts or windbreaks. This
interpretation would make them some of
the earliest examples of human habitation
ever found. Other archaeologists, like Paola
Villa disputed this hypothesis. So the
experts’ debate is still going on.
Anyway, the French Riviera is a major
prehistoric site. It was inhabited by man
several million years B.C. as shown in Roquebrune-
Cap-Martin grottoes by traces of
human activity.
Around 400 000 years ago, the first homes
were supposedly built around the Terra
Amata beaches, and 200 000 years BC the
Lazaret Cave (between La Réserve” and
Coco Beach) was inhabited by hunters. 80
000 years ago Neanderthal man occupied
the surrounding grottoes. Weapons dating
from 30 000 years BC have been found
proving that Homo sapiens sapiens lived in
this area.
The Terra Amata Museum of Human Palaeontology
presents the cast of the original
beach showing a footprint of a hominid of
about 1.55m, original fire circles, animal
bone remains and tools. Some coprolites
(fossilized excrements) have been found
but cannot be attributed to men, and no
human remains have been discovered. Various
elements have enabled the scientists to
visualize the type of habitat used by our local
ancestors and to build a hut made of branches
such as it was done by the Homo erectus that
lived here. The site has yielded a large amount
of flint tools giving evidence of an industry of
choppers, scrapers and other cutting tools being
made on the site.
The museum organizes theme exhibitions such
as the current one “The Fire Conquest” and lectures.
It receives groups of children who work on
school projects. It is open to the public except on
Mondays. It is located at 25 Boulevard Carnot
06300 Nice, 04 93 55 59 93.
Histoire
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