November 2008. A hundred years after being donated to the National Archaeology Museum, the world's greatest collection of prehistoric art was finally opened to the public. It is a collection that boasts some of mankind's masterworks, the most famous being the "Lady with the Hood", a face carved in mammoth ivory over 25,000 years ago. It remains the oldest known portrait in the history of humanity.
Behind the public's long wait to admire this treasure lurks a little-known tale. Built up in the 19th century by an amateur archaeologist named Edouard Piette, this collection of carvings and sculptures tells us as much about our ancestors as it does about the man who dug them out of the ground over a hundred years ago, at a time when the science of prehistory was in its infancy.
Tracing the footsteps of this pioneer of prehistoric art, A Face for Prehistory takes us on a thrilling scientific and human adventure amid the wealth of new discoveries and fierce debate that characterised the late 19th century.
