In 2026, Café & Vidéo du CNRS celebrates its 30th anniversary! Detailed 2026 Program Café & Vidéo du CNRS invites you to discover films produced or co-produced by CNRS Images. Every Thursday of the month, attend a screening of a scientific film followed by a discussion with local researchers. On Thursday, May 7 at 1:30 PM, come watch in the amphitheater of CNRS Occitanie Est, the film "In the Skin of the First French Farmers" by Stéphane Jacques (90’, 2025). A meeting with Olivier Lemercier, professor at the University of Montpellier Paul Valéry within the laboratory of Archaeology of Mediterranean Societies (ASM) will follow the screening. Synopsis In the Skin of the First French Farmers takes us on an archaeological adventure tracing our very first agricultural ancestors. 7,500 years ago, coming from the Near East, the pioneers of agriculture crossed seas and mountains and initiated a revolution on French territory: that of livestock and plant cultivation. Both adventurers and builders, they laid the first stones of villages. On our soil, they brought an end to prehistory. The film recounts this foundational epic. Thanks to spectacular advances in paleogenetics, archaeology, and innovative visual reconstructions, the film brings these pioneers, men and women long forgotten, back to life. Who were they? What did they look like? How did their encounter with the inhabitants of the territory, hunter-gatherers present for millennia, unfold? Bringing with them their own animals, their own seeds, and unprecedented knowledge, the first farmers sought to tame nature and transmitted much more than techniques: a way of life that is still ours today. Blending scientific inquiry, embodied storytelling, and striking revelations, this documentary tells the prequel to our world today. An epic as little known as it is moving, which changes our perspective on the origins of our society. Speaker Olivier Lemercier is a professor at the University of Montpellier Paul Valéry within the laboratory of Archaeology of Mediterranean Societies (ASM). His research focuses on the end of prehistory in Europe and the Mediterranean, the Neolithic period.
Event from the official agenda of Montpellier; location: CNRS Occitanie Est; address: 1919 Route de Mende, 34090, Montpellier.
Source: Montpellier Agenda