L’érosion marine et ses effets sur les vestiges archéologiques en mer d’Iroise : exemple de l’impact de la tempête de mars 2008 sur l’île de Kemenez et ses Ledenez (Le Conquet, Finistère, France)

The March 2008 storm, whose effects were felt on all the Atlantic coasts of Europe, had a particularly strong impact onthe west of Finistère. In some places, the coastline retreated by several metres, thus uncovering some archaeologicaldeposits. The island of Kemenez and the islets of Ledenez Vihan and Ledenez Vraz (offshore from Le Conquet, Finistère) inthe Molène archipelago provide good illustrations of the impact of this storm on archaeological remains. The inhabitantsof the island farm of Kemenez (D. and S. Cuisnier) spotted three sites uncovered by storm action on the foreshore limit: acollective burial of presumed shipwreck victims attributed to the late Middle Ages, a Bronze Age burial cist and a burialmound of the Middle Neolithic I.While the means of investigation used on the three sites were very different, the types of results obtained were also veryvaried, i.e. the chronological attribution of the collective burial, the characterization of a Middle Neolithic burial mound and the unexpected discovery of a Rcent Neolithic midden pit particularly rich in perfectly preserved faunal remains. The few examples clearly point out the urgent need for continious monitoring of the foreshores, especially after high tides combined with storm swell.