Archaeoseismology in France: developments and new perspectives for cultural heritage preservation

Archaeoseismology is one of the four issues usually involved to increase the knowledge of seismic risk. The three other issues are seismic records, historical seismicity, and palaeoseismicity. Archaeoseismology was founded as a discipline in the 1980s. It was developed and methodologically defined during the 1990s and 2000s, and its new developments and perspectives are based on two procedures. First, the numerical field, with tools like the database OPUR (Outil Pour Unités de Réparation), “Tool For Reparation Units”, conceived as a sort of atlas, to collect and index all the types of repairs identified in the Roman site of Pompeii, in Italy. Second, the focus on the evolution of ancient buildings and their pathologies, serves as a basis for the structural modelling, carried out by engineers. It allows to understand the behaviour of ancient buildings during seismic motion, to quantify the impact of seismic effects on cultural heritage and to propose a method of preservation. Major studies conducted in France as well as recent developments in this field are presented, in order to illustrate this collaboration between archaeoseismologists and engineers for the preservation of cultural heritage.