Documentary films & series
Our analyses and companions to the great documentaries on prehistory and antiquity: what science actually says, with sources.
The "Sistine Chapel of prehistory" is no longer where art was invented. Patrick Boucheron of the College de France revisits Lascaux in this short ARTE documentary to question our relationship with prehistoric time and the invention of images.
Watch the documentary →Through the Dame du Cavillon, the burials of Dolni Vestonice, Sungir and the Cussac cave, this ARTE documentary (2021) reveals the unsuspected complexity of Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer societies.
Watch the documentary →Paintings of extinct thylacines, mouthless Wandjina figures, 17,000-year-old Gwion Gwion: Australia holds humanity's oldest rock art tradition, spanning 50,000 years and millions of images.
Watch the documentary →Thirty-seven metres underwater near Marseille, Cosquer cave hides 27,000 years of prehistoric art: horses, aurochs and gréât auks painted by Homo sapiens deeply connected to thé coastal world. This documentary explores thé maritime roots of our species, from thé shell-adorned Lady of Cavillon to thé whales of prehistoric Atlantic Europe, and asks what thé rising seas have swallowed of our past.
Watch the documentary →Between January and February 2026, Jean-Jacques Hublin, professor at the Collège de France, delivered six lectures on the fundamental question: how and why did <em>Homo sapiens</em> replace all other human species? Available in full on YouTube, they are an exceptional resource for understanding our own evolutionary history.
Watch the documentary →35,000 years ago, humans anatomically identical to us ventured into the darkness of caves to paint masterpieces. Who were the Cro-Magnons, and what were they expressing on the walls of Font-de-Gaume, Altamira, and Lascaux?
Watch the documentary →Its entrance is 37 metres below the sea. Its paintings are 27,000 years old. Cosquer Cave, discovered by a diver in 1985 in the Marseille calanques, is the only known decorated cave in the world whose access is submerged, a masterpiece that rising seas threaten to engulf for ever.
Watch the documentary →Between 50,000 and 35,000 years ago, Neanderthals vanished as Homo sapiens produced the first artworks and built the first social networks. Seven filmed lectures from the Collège de France dissect this pivotal turning point in human history.
Watch the documentary →Where the North Sea now lies, hunter-gatherers lived 10,000 years ago. Doggerland, a vast plain linking Britain to the continent, was slowly drowned, then swept by a tsunami.
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