Inspecter les montagnes autrement: Renouvellement méthodologique de la prospection archéologique des terrains d'altitude

42nd Nice Côte d’Azur International Meeting of Archaeology and History. Settlement, Territory and Landscape Dynamics: Assessment and Prospects in Spatial Archaeology. Tribute to Jean-Luc-Fiches. October 12-14, 2022 – Nice – FranceInternational audienceIt took several decades of interaction and dialogue between human sciences and environmental sciences and a number of methodological advances for high altitude spaces to be considered as something other than immutable and atonic. Subjected to integrated interdisciplinary questioning, they reveal not one, but many complex histories and dynamics. By historicising mountain areas, the global point of view on societies is reversed and the whole of the valley systems are reconsidered. It is clear that the teams involved in this research are faced with the problem of acquiring primary information. An essential prerequisite for any archaeological research, high mountain prospecting has its own specificities and particular methodological challenges. How can we go beyond the threshold of the visible surface (micro-relief elevation) to enrich the information with infrastructures made of perishable materials or covered by vegetation? How can we systematise the acquisition to be able to process larger territories more quickly?Technological advances (photogrammetry, thermography, Lidar, georadar, magnetometer, chemical analysis of soils), the diversification and miniaturisation of sensors, the democratisation and development of aerial drones, which allow for the repeatability of acquisitions, are opening up the possibility of setting up new archaeological information acquisition procedures. The new data processing tools, the work on software ergonomics and the opening up of the field of possibilities offered by artificial intelligence allow us to foresee new possibilities for optimising the detection of archaeological remains in high altitude environments