The La Clape assemblage sits on a limestone promontory on the Mediterranean coast near present-day Narbonne. Archaeological contexts — notably the Grotte Basse de la Vigne Perdue and the Grotte du Rouquet — preserve human remains and occasional artefacts spanning the Late Neolithic into the Early–Middle Bronze Age (radiocarbon dates cluster between ca. 3495 and 1547 BCE). These cave deposits likely represent episodic use for burials and secondary interment rather than continuous occupation, a pattern seen at other coastal cave sites in southern France.
Material culture from the region suggests a long-standing tradition of farming, herding and coastal resource use that experienced new influences during the third and second millennia BCE. Limited evidence indicates changes in mortuary practice and in the composition of grave goods that may track shifting social networks and mobility along the western Mediterranean. Archaeological data indicates contact with inland lowland groups and maritime connections that could have carried new ideas, goods, and people into La Clape.
Genetic evidence from nine individuals provides a focused, if small, snapshot: patterns are compatible with local Neolithic ancestry augmented by later incoming lineages. Because sample numbers are low and contexts mixed, any reconstruction of population origins remains preliminary and should be treated cautiously.
