Samara Arboretum

La Chaussée-Tirancourt, France, France

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Samara Arboretum, also called Arboretum de Samara, is a unique archaeological park and botanical garden located in La Chaussée-Tirancourt, Somme, in Picardy, France, that combines an outdoor prehistory museum with extensive botanical gardens featuring over 100 tree varieties and 500 plant species across 30 hectares of marshland and natural grounds.

The park was created in the 1980s along the Somme river valley near an ancient Roman camp called Camp César, and the arboretum itself was planted in 1987–1988 by park designer Bruno Lebel to connect the archaeological park with the river valley, shaped like an enormous pike fish.

Visitors can explore 60 tree species from Picardy and European vegetation heritage, plus exotic species like Ginkgo biloba, while walking a nature trail through a site protected under multiple biodiversity conservation programs (ZNIEFF, Natura 2000, RAMSAR) due to its exceptional biodiversity.

The park also features an ethnobotanical garden demonstrating Neolithic cultivation methods with historically accurate plants, plus reconstructed prehistoric dwellings and buildings from the Paleolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age (dating to 300 BC), along with artisan demonstrations in basketry, pottery, masonry, and wood or stone working.