Ancient Gaulish village unearthed in south-west France

Excavations have taken place on a Gaulish village in Dordogne, south-west France, which was found by a farmer who has been discovering remnants of the Gauls for the past 50 years. 

Jacques and Laurent Combaud, two farmer brothers, used to roam around as kids on the land, sometimes picking up pieces of ceramic or iron, without knowing what they were. 

“I always felt passionate about history, although far from being an expert. As a kid, I loved picking up little things that I found in the fields and I used to think that there must have been a settlement from the Middle Ages,” Jacques Combaud told The Connexion. 

“One day, I found a piece of money, a coin, that I took to a specialist who told me it was Gaulish. 

“Nothing more came of it for a while until he met a man from Bordeaux who was an amateur archaeologist. He insisted the plot of land must be investigated further. 

“Interest in the land grew from local archaeology associations. Magnetic geophysical research took place, involving , as well as aerial photographs taken from a plane. 

“We found an arrondi de terre, a mound of earth, that was not the same colour as the rest of the earth. They said that it was from burnt ground. This 300 metres makes an arc on a promontory plateau which dominates the valley.”

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Gaulish fortification dated

A first excavation took place in 2021, which was “very significant”. It allowed the archaeologists to date the Gaulish fortification and the village existed between 900 BC to the year 0, based on everything found, meaning it goes from the Iron Age to Gaulish times.

Burnt wood was found on the fortifications around the building and the whole village was filled in with earth. 

The reason behind this is not clear, although it may be linked to the arrival of Romans in France as the dates coincide.

A woman even wrote her PhD thesis on the Gaulish village.

A second excavation took place this summer, in a different spot, more inside the village than at the fortifications. 

A ‘road’ and the foundations of a settlement were found, such as the remnants of a workshop for metal and ceramics.

“This type of village with fortifications and a kind of road is a very rare find. There were rules, a chief and religious rites, it was a community that decided to live together in a village for something like this to exist. It is the structure of a society,” said Mr Combaud.

“I never expected something like this when I was picking things up over the past decades.” 

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As the land belongs to the Combauds, everything found on it is theirs. 

However, they have given the remnants of the village to the archaeologists to investigate further – although they hope to get them back eventually. 

The farmers have had to give up their land in order to accommodate the digs, but are more than happy to do so to further our knowledge on the area in the given time period.

The site will then be filled in so that the cattle can resume grazing. 

Excavations will continue on the site in the future, with a potential three-year programme of digging.