Archaeologist

Jean-Paul Demoule is professor of European Protohistory at the University of Paris 1, and was President of the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) from 2002 to 2008. He has a doctorate in Prehistory from the Sarrebruck University in Germany and a thesis from the University of Paris 1. He was an organizer of the Archaeological Preservation Program for the Aisne Valley which started in the 1970’s and one of the first efficient archaeological preventive operations in France. He also organized digs in Greece and Bulgaria. His work focuses on the Neolithic age in Europe as well as the Iron Age in the Parisian Basin. He has also worked on the relations between archaeology, ideology and society, notably within the framework of the “Indo-European” theme and to the political uses of archaeology. Lastly, he has studied the questions of science policies, supervised a CNRS laboratory and was one of the architects of the 2001 Law on preventive archaeology.