Marseille2 is a commune in the South-East of France, capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and prefecture of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.

In 2018, Marseille is the second most populous municipality in France with 868,277 inhabitants. Its urban unit, which extends north to Aix-en-Provence, is the third in France with 1,607,292 inhabitants, behind Paris and Lyon. Since January 1, 2016, Marseille has been home to the headquarters of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis, the second most populous in France with 1,873,707 inhabitants3. Its urban area is, for its part, the third in France after those of Paris and Lyon with 1,756,296 inhabitants in 2016. These figures make Marseille the largest city in the South of France, in the Occitan cultural region, as well as in the linguistic area of ​​the langue d'oc.

Oldest city in France4 founded in Antiquity under the name of Μασσαλία / Massalía) around 600 BC. AD by Greek sailors and merchants from Phocaea (today Foça, near Izmir, Turkey), Marseille has been an important trading and transit port since Antiquity. It experienced considerable commercial growth during the colonial period and more particularly during the 19th century, becoming a prosperous industrial and trading city5.

A legacy of this past, the Grand Maritime Port of Marseille (GPMM) and the maritime economy constitute major centers of regional and national activity6 and Marseille remains the leading French port, the second Mediterranean port7 and the fifth European port8. Its privileged location on the edge of the Mediterranean allowing the arrival of numerous underwater cables also makes Marseille the ninth hub for connection to the global internet network with one of the strongest global growth in this sector9,10.

Marseille's openness to the Mediterranean Sea has made it since its origins a cosmopolitan city marked by numerous cultural and economic exchanges with Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Since the 17th century, it has often been considered the “Gateway to the Orient” on the French Mediterranean coast11.

The first vestiges of human presence in the Marseille basin date back to around 60,000 BC. AD (Middle Paleolithic)85. During the Upper Paleolithic the Cosquer cave, then not submerged, was occupied between 27,000 and 19,000 before the present. Furthermore, in June 200586, excavations uncovered remains of a Neolithic settlement dating back to 6,000 BCE, near Saint-Charles station, around rue Bernard du Bois87. Pottery fragments found on the south bank of the Old Port attest to the human occupation of the site in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC88. During the Paleolithic, populations lived in this area, as evidenced by the presence of a habitat on one side of the hills adjoining the Riaux (watercourse). Seafood, hunting and gathering products were eaten there (the numerous caves and the surrounding oppida are worthy of interest at l'Estaque as in Martigues, on the site of la Cloche, or even Verduron).

The cliffs and caves were occupied around the bed of the Riaux (watercourse), remains found in the 19th and 20th centuries prove human activity dating from the Magdalenian, i.e. between �