An archaeological survey was carried out to locate the remains of the former village of Cap Blanc prior to development work in Les Hauts de Saint-Joseph by the Office National des Forêts.
The first inhabitants of the village, founded in 1785, came from Langevin or the area around Saint-Joseph, to work in the geranium-growing industry established here in the 1850s. Some one hundred people lived here until the second half of the 20th century.
The surveyed site is a small clearing facing east-west and covering an area of approximately 1,600 sq.m. Archaeologists found the extensive remains of relatively well-preserved buildings in elevation, mainly dry-stone walls and low walls, which have survived blowdown – mostly filao trees – and partial collapse. Built without mortar using average-module stones, the buildings used a construction method adapted to the large rocky blocks naturally found on the site. The walls, 60 cm thick on average, are between 50 cm and 1.3 metres high. Three main types of structure were recorded: terrace retaining walls, entry and passage ways between structures, and polygonal and circular enclosures, which archaeologists interpreted as the stone bases of habitats built in perishable materials.
