In 2015, the discovery of a large number of Neanderthal fossils in the Mandrin cave in the heart of the Rhône valley was the starting point for an archaeological adventure. Dating back around 40,000 years, this late Neanderthal, named Thorin after Tolkien's dwarf king, provides new clues about this species, which lived on the Eurasian continent for 300,000 years before mysteriously dying out. Why did it disappear in favour of Homo sapiens? That's what prehistorian Ludovic Slimak and his team are trying to find out. For the last twenty years, they have been exploring the Mandrin cave, occupied for eighty thousand years and miraculously preserved thanks to the sands carried by the Mistral wind rushing through its northern opening.