Experimentation is one of the means that researchers use to study archaeological material when faced with the numerous questions arising from observation. It is an analytical method that passes through various phases of observation, a constant give-and-take between the study of the actual archaeological material and the data obtained from experimentation.

     Experimentation was used to study Palaeolithic Art very soon after its discovery, with the aim of authenticating it: L. Legay between 1875 and 1880 was the first to set up an experimental procedure in order to establish a connexion between flint tools and markings found on an archaeological object. However, this development was also made in connexion with the technological studies undertaken with regards to bone objects. Experimentation is indeed part of three important directions given to archaeological studies, namely:

     Within an artistic framework, experimentation allows us to answer specific questions concerning the reconstitution of technical processes: transforming a medium, operating gestures, direction of line drawings, etc... We are therefore concerned with recreating these gestures in order to analyse them and obtain a reference of stigmatas that we can then compare (with the help of macro and microscopic observations) to the archaeological material in question (see the PhD thesis by Lise Aurière).