"Private Prehistory: Being in Homo Sapiens Shoes". Sophie A. de Beaune. Gallimard, folio histoire, 2022.

The work is the occasion to give a background to the more or less established knowledge on what was the life of women, men and children in the prehistoric era. In order to go beyond the clichés resulting from the works of the 19th century, the author chooses to start from the study of the use of the bodies of women, men and children who lived between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago in Europe, even if the reader will discover that the study concerns sites all over the world by integrating the observation of contemporary practices studied in areas that were long isolated from modern ways of life.

Through the archaeology of the body, the aim is to study the activities, the relations between women and men, the status of children, the status of the sick... but also what it is possible to seize of the emotions, of the affects. All things considered invisible that the author intends to reveal from indirect traces and with a rigorous scientific method.

The message of the book is a signal to prehistorians but it is also addressed to the reader and to the amateur reader by inviting him to let himself be carried by the patchwork of research results presented in order to let the image of the prehistoric life settle gradually.

A book to put in all hands, a delight to imagine our common roots.