The rock shelter of Grande Rivoire (Isère, France)

The Grande Rivoire rock shelter is located in the subalpine Vercors massif, not far from the city of Grenoble (Isère, France). Its sedimentary fill contains more than 5 metres of human occupation remains covering 8,000 years of history, from the last Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to the early centuries of our era.

Since 1999, this planned excavation site has served as a ‘training excavation’ for many Swiss and French students. The research is conducted under the direction of Pierre-Yves Nicod, archaeologist at the Laboratory of Prehistoric Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Geneva, and is funded by the French Ministry of Culture and the Department of Isère.