René Neuville (30 October 1899, Gibraltar – 23 June 1952, Jerusalem) was a French

prehistorian Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

and

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

posted to the French consulate in Jerusalem.

Diplomatic career

Neuville's father was the

consul general A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

of France in

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

. He entered the diplomatic service at a young age and was first posted to Vintimille in Italy. In 1926, he was named chancellor to the French consulate in Jerusalem, where he stayed for eleven years. He was appointed to

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

in 1937, then with the onset of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

to Gibraltar and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

, where he continued his archaeological research. In 1943, he was in

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...

and

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

. In 1946, he returned to Jerusalem as consul general and resumed his archaeological work, though he was also occupied with diplomatic duties. He was in office at the time of the 1946

King David Hotel bombing The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack on 22 July 1946 by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization the ...

Archaeology

Neuville's interest in archaeology began in Italy, where he studied Egyptian

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

. Arriving in Palestine in 1926, he was introduced to the region's prehistory by

Alexis Mallon Alexis Mallon (1875–1934), more commonly known as Père Mallon, was a French Jesuit priest and archaeologist. He founded the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem and made important early contributions to the study of the prehistory of t ...

, head of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, and

Denis Buzy Denis Buzy (born at Bénéjacq 22 March 1883; died at Bethlehem 21 May 1965) was a French archaeologist who excavated the Tahunian culture at Wadi Tahuna near Bethlehem in 1928. Buzy was a Betharram Father and in 1933 published the ''Life of ...

and P. Duvigneau of the

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Car ...

monastery in Bethlehem. Mallon in particular became a mentor to Neuville; the two went on to collaborate on excavations at Umm Qatafa, and Neuville assisted Mallon at

Teleilat el Ghassul Teleilat el-Ghassul, also spelled Tuleilat el-Ghassul and Tulaylât al-Ghassûl, is the site of several small hillocks (''tuleilat'', 'small tells') containing the remains of a number of Neolithic and Chalcolithic villages in Jordan. It is the ty ...

. Through Buzy and Duvigneau, he developed ties with the

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...

Wadi Khureitun Wadi Khureitun or Nahal Tekoa is a wadi in a deep ravine in the Judaean Desert in the West Bank, west of the Dead Sea, springing near Tekoa. Name The Hebrew name, Nahal Tekoa ("Tekoa Stream"), and the English name used in some Christian contexts, ...

, who would sell their monastery artefacts they found when clearing out caves in the

Judaean Desert The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert ( he, מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, Midbar Yehuda}, both ''Desert of Judah'' or ''Judaean Desert''; ar, صحراء يهودا, Sahraa' Yahuda) is a desert in Palestine and Israel that lies east of Jerusa ...

. One of these artefacts was the figurine Neuville dubbed the

Ain Sakhri Lovers The Ain Sakhri figurine or Ain Sakhri Lovers is a Natufian sculpture that was found in one of the Ain Sakhri caves near Bethlehem. It is approximately 11,000 years old and thought to be the oldest known representation of two people engaged in sexu ...

, which he was able to date by revisiting the cave where it was found and sieving through the sediment excavated by the Bedouin. In 1933, while exploring a cave in Jebel Qafzeh, near

Nazareth Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...

, Neuville discovered the remains of five peoples buried in the

Middle Palaeolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

. Neuville was also interested in

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

and

malacology Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

. He described two new taxa of ''

Levantina ''Levantina'' is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Helicinae of the family Helicidae, the typical snails.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Levantina Kobelt, 1871. Accessed throug ...

'' and '' Loripes'', though he never published them. After his death, his extensive collection of

mollusc shells The mollusc (or molluskOften spelled mollusk shell in the USA; the spelling "mollusc" are preferred by ) shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton which encloses, supports and protects the soft parts of an animal in the phylum Mollusca, which ...

from the Levant, Sinai, North Africa and France was donated to the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

, along with his library of malacological works.

Personal life

Neuville's son, Pierre Neuville, also pursued a diplomatic career and conducted archaeological and palaeontological research.

Selected publications

* Avec Boureau R. ''Squelettes palestiniens du premier âge de bronze''. In: Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, VIII^e Série. Tome 1 fascicule 4–6, 1930. pp. 33–36. * ''« Quartiers d'Orange » de Palestine''. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique de France, tome 28, 5, 1931. pp. 264–265. * * ''L'Acheuléen supérieur de la Grotte d'Oumm-Qatafa (Palestine)'', Paris, Masson, 1931. * Avec

Robert Koeppel The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

:''Teleilāt Ghassūl, I : compte rendu des fouilles de l'Institut biblique pontifical, 1929-1932'' , Rome, Piazza della Pilotta, 1934. * Avec Armand Ruhlmann :''La place du paléolithique ancien dans le quaternaire marocain'', Casablanca : Farairre, 1941. * Avec Ruhlmann A. : ''L'âge de l'Homme fossile de Rabat''. In: Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, IX^e Série. Tome 3, 1942. pp. 74–88. * ''Demande d'appui pour le classement du site préhistorique de Sidi Abd er Rahman au Maroc''. In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 86^e année, N. 2–3, 1942. pp. 155–156. * ''Heurs et malheurs des consuls de France à Jérusalem aux XVII^e, XVIII^e et XIX^e siècles 2'', Jérusalem, Azriel Printing Works, 1948. * ''Le Néolithique marocain à anses funiculaires internes'', Le Mans, Imprimerie Monnoyer, 1948. *avec la collaboration de MM. Yaacov Bentor, G. Haas, J. Perrot et Raymond Vaufrey :''Le paléolithique et le mésolithique du désert de Judée'', Paris, Masson, 1951. :: -

Prix Bordin The Prix Bordin is a series of prizes awarded annually by each of the five institutions making up the Institut Français since 1835. History The prize was created by Charles-Laurent Bordin, a notary in Paris from 1794 to 1820, who bequeathed 12,00 ...

1952 de l’

Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions ( epig ...

. * ''Station acheuléenne du Sinaï septentrional : Djebel el-Faleq''. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique de France, tome 49, n^os 1-2, 1952. pp. 77–80.

References

External links

Fortune and Misfortune of a Consul of France in Jerusalem
''Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem'' *
Le Quai d'Orsay et les Juifs
' {{DEFAULTSORT:Neuville, René 1899 births 1952 deaths 20th-century French diplomats French archaeologists Archaeologists of the Near East Prehistorians