Park of Samara

Samara is a Recreation park treating Préhistoire located in Picardy, a few kilometres from Amiens in the Somme.

It makes it possible to traverse more than 600.000 years of history. One can discover reconstitutions of habitats there, craftsmen who proposing demonstrations to you: cut Silex, Poterie, Tissage, Vannerie, work of the stone, wood, bronze, iron and mosaic. Its house with original architecture representing a body of woman seen of the sky will involve you in two captivating exposures.

The Prehistory in the Somme, a long story…

It is in the middle of the 19th century that Jacques Boucher of Perthes discovers cut Silex and fossil remainders of animals in the careers of Abbeville. For him, it is about the undeniable proof of the existence of the man " before Déluge" , of the prehistoric man. To stop of Perthes is regarded today by the prehistorians as the first of them.

A little later, in the middle of the XIXe century, the modern Archéologie will know an important advance in a suburb of Amiens, with Saint-Acheul. Whereas the city extends beyond its old fortifications, of great careers are open to excavate the material used for manufacture from bricks. During this work carried out with the hand, the workmen discover great quantities of cut flints. Between 1855 and 1910, many studies are undertaken, inter alia, by Doctor Rigolot, Albert Gaudry and Victor Commont. In 1872, Gabriel de Mortillet proposes to call “Acheuléen S” all the tools comparable with those found in this suburb of Amiens. The tools of Saint-Acheul were gone back to approximately 450.000 years; the oldest tools acheuléens, discovered in Africa, go back them to 1,6 million years.

It is the geological history of the Somme which partly explains the success of Prehistory in the area. The river dug its valley gradually since approximately 1 million years all while shifting. One of the slopes of the valley was thus dug in alluvial terraces, themselves covered with each glacial period by the Lœss, of fine ground particles torn off by the wind (regularly more than 8 meters in the area). These loesses protected the traces given up by the prehistoric men. When we dig the ground with such depths, we naturally discover the traces of a remote past…

External bond

site of the park of Samara

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