Abstract
Ever since his discovery in 1856, Neanderthal has been the subject of numerous figurative representations, almost systematically based on scientific principles. The results of these associations between artists and scientists have not escaped numerous stereotypes, clichés and even caricatures about the supposed animality of our distant cousin. And all this in an era marked by a desire to establish a hierarchy of human " races " based on pseudo-scientific data, colonialism and philosophical and religious controversies about man's place in nature.
This lecture offers a brief examination of these representations and their consequences in the XIXth and XXthcenturies, and poses the question : what is our view of the (prehistoric) Other ?
Biography
Pascal Depaepe is an archaeologist with a doctorate in prehistory, and the Hauts-de-France regional director of the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap). His main area of research concerns Neanderthal man, and more specifically man-environment interactions, habitat dynamics and the role of climatic fluctuations in the settlement of Europe. He was co-curator of the exhibition Néandertal l'expo (Musée de l'Homme, 2018-2019).
