This article begins when Jean Perrot (1920–2012), a young French archaeologist, arrives in British Mandate Palestine, at the end of the Second World War. Retracing his career and presenting the Israeli institutions and networks he relied on allows us to measure his role in the shaping of the field of prehistory during the formative years of the State of Israel. This takes us back in time, to the origins of the French prehistoric–presence in Palestine in the 19th century and its evolution during the British Mandate times. Lastly, this contextualized approach, on the longue durée, contributes to the history of the establishment, in Jerusalem, of a new French research structure dedicated to prehistory in the second half of the 20th century.
