Grotte du Lazaret, Nice, France

In Oct 2021 I was on a cruise ship that docked at Nice, south of France. Luckily it was a small ship and we were able to dock in the port, rather than the cruise terminal which is much further away from town. I spotted a cave marked on my map which was very close to the port, so had a google and found it is an archaeological cave and worth a visit. 

Grotte du Lazaret Nice

An archaeological cave site of prehistoric human inhabitation, situated in the eastern suburbs of Nice, very close to the port. The entrance is off Boulevard Franck Pilatte, and the cave is in the hill below the arches. Excavations have revealed  human shelters dating back to the  Lower Palaeolithic, 186 k - 127 k ya. More than 20,000 fossilized faunal bone fragments have been found. 

Cranial fragments of a skull are believed to be from a 9 yr old, at 200,000 years old, this could be Homo heidelbergensis or a proto Neanderthal human. 

Excavations took place in the 1970s. Close to the cave mouth, Andueulean stone tools were found. as well as fragments of animal bones and what are thought to be two charcoal hearths. 

From the road, a path leads up to the reception and the path is lined with information boards on the archaeology, geology etc, with prehistoric animal shapes made out of metal. 

At the reception I had to show proof of covid vaccines or a negative test. Then up to the entrance - amazingly there is no charge. A walkway into the chamber is lined with information displays and replicas of cave deposits. 

The cave itself is one chamber and visitors go along a platform listening to the audio visual display. The visuals are good, with items such as tools and bones illustrated in a square of light on the walls or floors. At the end of the platform there is a longer light display, showing a river or the sea in the cave, then "holograms" of  human inhabitants and animals etc with cave paintings of animals shown on the walls. It was all very effective and different from anything else I've seen. 

This wall is a replica of the wall that still exists on the hill top and the cave is below (see last photo) -

Apparently the cave opened to visitors in 2017, and surprisingly is free. Behind the reception is a very small room showing different skulls and a model of a cave man.

The hill where the cave is located, with the arched wall above -

See a detailed page on Grotte du Lazaret here and also a Wikipedia article.

Rising Star Expedition, Johannesburg South Africa

News of a new expedition to look for human ancestor fossils in South Africa -

The Rising Star Expedition will be delving into a cave of the same name outside Johannesburg in South Africa. They will try and recover recently found fossils that are thought to be of a possibly new hominid species.

See reports  
 Rising Star Expedition launched from University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 6 Nov 2013

Excavation of Human Ancestor Fossils Begins in South African Cave in National Geographic Daily News, 6 Nov 2013.

In recent years new finds mean that the earlier thoughts on hominid/human evolution are being revised. See the Georgia hominid skull report.

You can follow the expedition progress here .


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2015 update on the finds, see my blog Homo naledi, a new species of human ancestor from South Africa .

New hominid skull from Georgia

In October 2013 it was announced that a complete hominid skull had been discovered in Georgia.

From The Guardian , 17 October:
The discovery of a complete hominid skull and other fossil remains in Dmanisi, Georgia, suggests that the earliest members of the Homo genus – currently split into half a dozen distinct species – actually belonged to a single species: Homo erectus. These early human ancestors probably just had a wide range of physical appearances, say researchers in the journal Science. The skull is 1.8m years old and has a small braincase, a long face and large teeth, a combination of features not previously seen in other early Homo fossils.

Click on the above link to see a short video.And read more on this link.


The skull, along with stone tools and animal bones have been dated at 1.8 myo. This fossil is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene. Bones were found from five individuals. Animal bones include those from now extinct large cats.

The bones are said to be early forms of Homo erectus, the early relative of modern humans. Now it seems that they  left Africa earlier than previously thought.

Abstract from Science 18 Oct 2013 - A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo .