Abstract
In the space of a single generation, we have destroyed more than all the generations that preceded us since the invasions of late Antiquity. I feel a sense of solidarity with this long chain of men and women from the mists of time who have handed down a legacy to us - buildings, objects, writings and all the evidence we extract from the earth. I call these documents our " National Antiquities ". We must give our contemporaries and those who come after us a chance to know what Gaul was like, and, based on indispensable fieldwork and innovative work in the human sciences, to restore meaning to past lives. Our National Antiquities teach us what our predecessors were and what we are.
