French diplomat and archaeologist (1899–1952)
René Neuville (30 October 1899, Gibraltar – 23 June 1952, Jerusalem) was a French prehistorian and diplomat posted to the French consulate in Jerusalem.
Diplomatic career.
Neuville's father was the consul general of France in Gibraltar. He entered the diplomatic service at a young age and was first posted to Vintimille in Italy. In 1926, he was named chancellor to the French consulate in Jerusalem, where he stayed for eleven years.
He was appointed to Alicante in 1937, then with the onset of the Second World War to Gibraltar and Morocco, where he continued his archaeological research. In 1943, he was in Algiers and Tunis. In 1946, he returned to Jerusalem as consul general and resumed his archaeological work, though he was also occupied with diplomatic duties. He was in office at the time of the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.
Archaeology.
Neuville's interest in archaeology began in Italy, where he studied Egyptian epigraphy. Arriving in Palestine in 1926, he was introduced to the region's prehistory by Alexis Mallon, head of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, and Denis Buzy and P. Duvigneau of the Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem. Mallon in particular became a mentor to Neuville; the two went on to collaborate on excavations at Umm Qatafa, and Neuville assisted Mallon at Teleilat el Ghassul. Through Buzy and Duvigneau, he developed ties with the Bedouin of Wadi Khureitun, who would sell their monastery artefacts they found when clearing out caves in the Judaean Desert. One of these artefacts was the figurine Neuville dubbed the Ain Sakhri Lovers, which he was able to date by revisiting the cave where it was found and sieving through the sediment excavated by the Bedouin.
In 1933, while exploring a cave in Jebel Qafzeh, near Nazareth, Neuville discovered the remains of five peoples buried in the Middle Palaeolithic.
Neuville was also interested in paleontology and malacology. He described two new taxa of "Levantina" and "Loripes", though he never published them. After his death, his extensive collection of mollusc shells from the Levant, Sinai, North Africa and France was donated to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with his library of malacological works.
Personal life.
Neuville's son, Pierre Neuville, also pursued a diplomatic career and conducted archaeological and palaeontological research.
 - Prix Bordin 1952 de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres.
References.
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