Nestling between Asia’s two highest mountain ranges, the Himalayas to the south and the Karakoram to the north, Ladakh is a vast high-altitude desert along the upper reaches of the River Indus, and today occupies a strategic position between Pakistan and China in north-west India.

The MAFIL has endeavoured to demonstrate that Ladakh was already at the crossroads of the Central Asian, Indian and Tibetan worlds in ancient times, by focusing its research on:

• the remains of the Nubra Valley, with the discovery of lithic tools dating back to the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene, the first systematic study of ceramics in the Himalayan zone, and the architectural study of a monumental Buddhist stūpas attesting to the Earlier Dissemination of Buddhism in Ladakh in the last quarter of the 1st millennium AD from Kashmir and/or Central Asia;

• the ruined Buddhist site of Leh Choskor, emblematic of the ‘Later Spread of Buddhism’ (phyi dar) in the Western Himalayas (10th-13th centuries), with more than 135 structures, including 3 temples and 45 chortens, spread over 2.4 hectares;
  

• a study of open-air rock art spread across the whole of Ladakh, with almost 90 sites systematically documented for a total of around 17,000 petroglyphs, from the Bronze Age to the Later Spread of Buddhism.

The mission’s partners in India are:  

• the Archaeological Survey of India (phase 1: 2013-2016);

• the Department of History (Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology) at Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University (Srinagar) in Uttarakhand (phase 2: 2017-2020);

• the Centre of Central Asian Studies at the University of Kashmir (Srinagar), Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir ( phase 3: 2021-2024);
  

• the Rock Art and Historical Society of Spiti (RAHSS – 2022 and 2023).

Scientific cooperation agreements (MoU) have been signed between EPHE-PSL and the above-mentioned universities.

Eight field campaigns have been carried out (2013-2018 then 2022-2023) in the form of systematic documentation, surveys and excavations. The MAFIL’s field missions take place every year between May and September. The team is made up of around ten French, Indian and Ladakhi members, including archaeologists, engineers (topographer, draughtsman and photographer) and students.

Site and material studies have been supplemented by radiocarbon dating. The MAFIL has also set up a Digital Humanities project to compensate for the temporary inaccessibility of the field between 2019 and 2021.

In addition to its field campaigns, the MAFIL has been working to raise awareness of its activities in Ladakh through a wide range of initiatives (meetings with key local stakeholders, production of leaflets, etc.).

Skills are passed on through the participation of French and Indian students (Masters and PhDs) in the field campaigns. Practical (in India) or theoretical (in France and India) training days are also offered as required (archaeological drawing and photography, introduction to topographical survey, systematic documentation of rock art, seminars on the archaeology of South and Central Asia). Some students also come to France for internships to acquire or develop their skills (excavations, post-processing of data) and French students can carry out their mandatory Master’s internship in the mission’s archives.

The MAFIL has produced about fifty documents in the form of annual activity reports, digital resources, scientific articles, oral communications, teaching aids etc. The references are available in the MAFIL collection on the HAL open archive ,where some documents (annual activity reports for example) can be downloaded.

In order to disseminate the findings of its research as widely as possible in accordance with the principles of Open Science, in 2022 the mission initiated the deposit of its archives online in open access via the services of Huma-Num, the French digital infrastructure for research in the humanities and social sciences.

Since its creation at the end of 2012, the MAFIL has received institutional and/or financial support from:

• the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs via an annual research grant from the Advisory Commission for Archaeological Research Abroad, Paris;
• the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) of the PSL University (Paris Sciences & Lettres), Paris;
• the East Asian Civilizations Research Centre, Paris;
  
• the “Central Asian Archaeology research team” of the laboratory Archaeologies & Sciences of the Antiquity (ArScAn, UMR 7041), Nanterre;
• the French Institute in India (IFI), New Delhi.

The MAFIL has received additional institutional, private and/or financial supports for each phase if the project, which are specified on the dedicated page.