Breakthrough for French researchers with discovery of Neolithic village

Remi Martineau, researcher at the CNRS, stands at the mouth of a well, dating from the Modern Neolithic, around 3500-years-ago, from a settlement suggesting the presence of a village occupied by a structured population, at Val-des-Marais in the south of the Marne, on August 23, 2023. AFP - FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI

Archaeologists working a vast Neolithic site in northeast France have uncovered traces of a permanent settlement they say is the last piece of the puzzle in research that began 150 years ago.

The settlement was unearthed at the vast Neolithic site of Marais de Saint-Gond, giving rare insights into its social organisation 150 years after the first flints were discovered.