Roger Agache

Roger Agache (August 16, 1926 – September 17, 2011) was a French archaeologist. He was among the first to take part in aerial archaeology in France, and helped to develop a methodology for aerial prospecting.

Agache was born in Amiens, Picardy and died in Abbeville, Picardy. Agache earned PhD in art history and archeology. His doctoral thesis was Atlas d'Archéologie aérienne de Picardie, 1975; La Somme préromaine et romaine, d'après les prospections aériennes à basse altitude (The Pre-Roman and Roman Somme, Based on Low-Altitude Aerial Prospecting), completed in 1978.

Agache studied Paleolithic and Neolithic and then directed its research toward aerial archaeology in northern France, beginning in 1959. His early research helped to show that Gallo-Roman agriculture was more extensive and well-developed than had been previously known.

He was appointed Director of Prehistoric Antiquities for Nord-Picardie on 1 March 1963. He was lecturer at the University of Caen, then researcher at CNRS.

He is the author of more than 200 publications.

Agache spent several thousand hours in the air, taking and later analysing photographs for evidence of ancient settlement and travel patterns. His thousands of aerial photographs have been placed with the Ministry of Culture, where they may be consulted, for the most part at the DRAC in Picardie.

In 1978, Roger Agache was awarded the Grand Prix de Géographie, and in 1983 he received the Grand Prix National de l'Archéologie.

Agache was elected a correspondent of the Institut de France in 1991. The scientific community recognized him during the international conference at Amiens in 1992.