Arlette Leroi-Gourhan

Arlette Leroi-Gourhan (born Arlette Royer, 9 January 1913 – 25 April 2005) was a French archeologist. She was married to André Leroi-Gourhan, and they traveled to Japan for his research the year after their marriage. Leroi-Gourhan served as the President of Société Préhistorique Française, following her work at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique.

Leroi-Gourhan was born Arlette Royer on 9 January 1913 in Paris, to a wealthy family of industrialists. As a child she partook in sports and arts, as well as traveling throughout Europe and Northern Africa. She studied at École du Louvre, and later École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). At EHESS, she met André Leroi-Gourhan. Royer and Leroi-Gourhan married in 1936, and travelled to Japan the following year when André took up a two-year position funded by the Government of Japan.

Leroi-Gourhan focused her research on paleobotany, an underrepresented field of study at the time. She submitted ten papers on the subject between 1965 and 1989. She started a laboratory at Musée de l'Homme, which focused on the analysis of pollen. André Leroi-Gourhan lead the prehistory department at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), so he encouraged Arlette not to seek a position at the centre in order to avoid the appearance of nepotism. Subsequently, she served as a "director without position" for CNRS. In 1971 Leroi-Gourhan served as President of the Société Préhistorique Française (Prehistorical Society of France). During their marriage, Arlette and André Leroi-Gourhan only published one paper together, however Arlette published a paper based on her husband's earlier research in Japan following his death in 1986.

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