../images/FrenchC2.jpg

The ruins of Glanum, a Roman city near St. Remy de Provence, France

(Spectrum Colour Library)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the quantity of data being assembled and the number of professional archaeologists in post were infinitely greater than in the past. Whereas barely a dozen professional archaeologists were working on French sites in the early 1960s, in 2001 there were almost 1,500. Thus, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the expansion being experienced at last by French archaeology, in terms of both people and institutions, offered the prerequisites for making good the lack of epistemological questioning, theories, and interpretations. Work is under way to rethink the sociological models of the Neolithic period, the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the Gallo-Roman period, addressing the transformation of mentalities and the role of symbolism in the development of the Neolithic; the role of