Grotte préhistorique du Lazaret

Grotte préhistorique du Lazaret lies in Nice, France, where a cave opens above a steep ledge overlooking the Mediterranean. About thirty-five metres long and four to fourteen metres wide, it preserves traces of Lower Palaeolithic occupation.

Twenty-nine occupation layers contain two and a half to three metres of sediment, more than 20,000 fossilised animal-bone fragments, stone tools and ancient hearths. The evidence dates from Marine Isotope Stage 6, between about 186,000 and 127,000 years ago, when deer-hunting groups used the cave temporarily. Excavations also uncovered 28 human remains, including cranial fragments from a nine-year-old child linked to Homo heidelbergensis or a proto-Neanderthal. Research intensified from the 1950s, and the cave became a listed historic monument in March 1963.

Near the entrance, two circular charcoal concentrations sit within an area measuring about eleven by three and a half metres. Large stones may have supported an animal-skin shelter, while tiny shells around the hearths could have arrived with seaweed used as bedding.