Angeac-Charente’s incredible dinosaur

Each season, the discoveries are more incredible than the other: traces of fossilized steps, turtles, crocodiles, lizards and plants of unique diversity, skeletons in excellent condition, giant species. The latest has shaken the world of paleontology. In 2024, Angeac teams got their hands on a kind of unknown sauropod. The presence in Charente of the animal close to the Camarasaurus of North America surprised the researchers. But it is above all the period of history to which it is attached which raises the biggest questions. Indeed, the excavation site is associated with the Cretaceous while the extinction of the Camarasaurus is dated from the Jurassic, a few million years earlier. This could question the limit between these two periods.

Enough to tap the scientific community and fascinate crowds. Open to the public, Angeac’s excavations, “Disneyland of La Paléo”, are a hit. Two thousand people rush to observe bone researchers in full action. And, if the visit is free, the places are expensive. “We are forced to refuse people. In less than two hours, everything is complete. The experience always has its little effect. The youngest have emoji eyes: “Me too, can I find a dinosaur in my garden?” »; “What was he ate?” »; “Was he a nice or a bad guy?” More in the restraint, the greatest are no less mouth, delighted to reconnect with a child’s soul which also asked than to re -emerge.

In front of them, the paleontologists excite, scratch and brush the soil from this giant cemetery. A delicate mission that runs without extravagance, trowel, opinel, oyster knife, toothbrush or dentist instrument in hand. To gently dislodge the finds of their gangue, they twist in all directions. Sitting, squatting or lying on the ground. Their frusks make it the price, torn, holes and smeared with clay and dried plaster spots.

But, in Angeac, clay does not dirty. She tells a story. That of the lords who reigned on earth 140 million years ago. And the end of a harasing site. By dint of digging, sometimes in the middle of a dodge, to sleep in tents or in their trucks, the volunteers also saw their features are chiseting slightly. But no time to feel sorry for its fate, because they got their hands on a scapula – scapula for ordinary people – 1.60 meters long and 1 meter wide. A beautiful “gigot of the mesozoic”, as they say, but which must be taken with tweezers … at the risk of damaging it, and of having nothing to put in the tooth. The last straight line therefore promises to be hectic and above all very intense.

It was in 2010 that this region renowned for its gypsum careers and vineyards began to see Dino everywhere. In January of the same year, one of Jean-Marie Audoin’s mechanical shovels, the boss of the quarries of the same name, randomly extirpates from the bottom of the water from colossal bones. The carrier knows that the place is known to receive the remains of ancient elephants which populated the earth 100,000 years ago, but this time, its instincts intimate to call more competent. He turns to the corner reference, Jean-François Tournepiche, then chief curator of the Angoulême museum, who remembers: “He assures me that the bones in question are very big but I do not pay too much attention. Indeed, ancient elephants are imposing, so it is normal that their dimensions can surprise. »»

But the business manager insists. “Don’t move, I’m coming!” He launched him before tumbled into the courtyard of the museum aboard his 4 x 4. Helped by three of his employees, he leaves his trunk a sacred piece which leaves speechless Jean-François Tournepiche. At the office window, on the second floor, the specialist instantly includes. “This bone was the size of the front of the 205 parked right next to it!” He could not belong to an elephant, but was necessarily to a dinosaur. »»

From then on, everything is linked very quickly. The soil survey confirms this discovery and, the following summer, excavations are organized in a small committee. The first results raise the enthusiasm of the scientific community. The density, quality and variety of fossils are unpublished. And then the Angeac site rocks in another dimension. A 2.02 meter femur belonged to a Turiasaurus with superlative measurements (35 meters long and 50 tonnes) is exhumed. The news goes around the world and the title press: “The biggest dinosaur in Europe is Charentais. »»

Soon the Angeacais deposit – which delivers an average of 80 fossils per cubic meter of earth – will become the most prolific of the old continent. Since 2010, it has made it possible to list 150,000 bone fragments as well as fifty species of vertebrates, including more than a dozen dinosaurs. And that is without counting the plants – tree strands, coniferous trunks or pine cones -, the remains, even more numerous, make it possible to reconstruct the lush ecosystem of the time.

“It is unique in France, in Europe and even worldwide. There is no deposit that has experienced sixteen years of excavation with around thirty people mobilized each time, and it is not over, enthuses Ronan Allain. If I was backed by any scientific institution, we would have done three years of maximum research and we should have stopped either for lack of credits, or because we would have been told: “You have looked, you have found it. Now you are going on.” In Angeac, we can register in long time. »»

So, step by step, the camp has grown. Today, it covers over 1,000 square meters. An extraordinary epic that could have turned into claws. Indeed, Ronan Allain and his teams dig soils which, technically, do not belong to them. Depending on the years, the terrains where the excavations took place were the property of the Carriers, the city of Angoulême, the department, the agglomeration of the Grand Cognac or the Rodet and Vrignaud families. Anyone who has already tasted any meeting of co -owners imagines how things could (badly) have turned. Especially since in France nothing protects paleontological discoveries. “In the eyes of the law, a dinosaur fossil is a pebble like another,” deplores Jean-François Tournepiche. Unlike archeology, the slightest find requires to stop any surrounding activity and whose discoveries are pointedly supervised, in paleontology, it is the Far West. Except in Angeac.

The owners have decided, without anything obliging them to donate paleontologists of everything they find on their land

The owners therefore decided, without anything obliging them to do so, except the desire to enhance this incredible terroir, to donate paleontologists of everything they find on their land. A symbolic gesture that is accompanied by support, financial and material, flawless. “Without the assistance of the various stakeholders, none of this would be possible,” said Jean-François Tournepiche, who, with his paleocharente association, barely 25,000 euros of annual budget, cannot assume everything. To extend their commitment, the quarryers have even bought several hectares of vineyards adjoining the excavations site to donate it to the association. “Yes, it doesn’t look like, but it exists this kind of thing,” proudly smiles Ronan Allain. In a region, the “little champagne”, where the hectare was still exchanging around 75,000 euros ago and at a time when the dinosaur skeletons made the heyday of private collectors or unscrupulous merchants, this initiative out of land is today a lot. In Angeac, the dinos, it is everyone’s business.