Henri Lhote

Henri Lhote (16 March 1903 – 26 March 1991) was a French explorer, ethnographer, and discoverer of prehistoric cave art. He is credited with the discovery of an assembly of 800 or more works of primitive art in a remote region of Algeria on the edge of the Sahara desert. He was aided by the local Tuareg guide .

Lhote came to believe the paintings testified to ancient contact with extraterrestrial beings and is considered one of the early proponents of paleocontact.

Biography In this 1967 photo, Henri Lhote poses next to rock art in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania.

Lhote was orphaned at age 12 and subsequently became a boy scout, where he learned about anthropology. He was largely self-taught until he became a pupil and protégé of Abbé Breuil, a great expert on prehistoric cave art in France. He began to do fieldwork in anthropology in 1929 but his work was often contested due to his lack of credentials. In 1945, at the age of 42, he finally obtained a doctorate under the direction of Marcel Griaule. He led unsuccessful expeditions to Hoggar and Teffedest Mountains in 1949–1950.

Discovery of Tassili Lhote met and befriended a French soldier named Charles Brennans who had discovered rock paintings and engravings in a remote, uninhabited zone on the edge of the Sahara desert, while on an exploratory mission there in the 1930s. The artwork was on sandstone cliffs in a deep wadi of a barren plateau known as Tassili-n-ajjer, and included depictions of elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, and strange human figures.

Lhote mounted three subsequent expeditions to Tassili between 1958 and 1962.

Namesakes The "Ouan Lhote Area" and the "Henri Lhote Arch" in Tassili National Park are named after him.

A species of North African lizard, Philochortus lhotei, was named in his honour.

Selected publications Aux prises avec le Sahara, (Les œuvres françaises, Paris, 1936). Le Sahara, désert mystérieux, (Editions Bourrelier, Paris, 1937; 1949). L'extraordinaire aventure des Peuls. Présence Africaine. Paris. Oct.-Nov. 1959. pp. 48–57 Les Touaregs du Hoggar, (Payot, Paris, 1944; 1955; A. Colon, Paris, 1984). Le Niger en kayak, (Editions J. Susse, Paris, 1946). Dans les campements touaregs, (Les œuvres françaises, Paris, 1947). La chasse chez les Touaregs, (Amiot-Dumont, Paris, 1951). A la découverte des fresques du Tassili, (Arthaud, Paris, 1958, 1973, 1992, 2006). L'épopée du Ténéré, (Gallimard, Paris, 1961). Les gravures rupestres du Sud-oranais, (Arts et Métiers graphiques, Paris, 1970). Les gravures rupestres de l'Oued Djerat, (SNED, Algiers, 1976). Vers d'autres Tassilis, (Arthaud, Paris, 1976). Chameau et dromadaire en Afrique du Nord et au Sahara. Recherche sur leurs origines, (ONAPSA, Alger, 1987). Le Sahara, (Grandvaux, 2003).