I often read how Julius Caesar commited genocide against the Gauls during the Gallic Wars, usually citing Plutarch's figure of one million killed and one million enslaved. Even Caesar's own book describes numerous massacres and mass enslavement taking place.
But AFAIK ancient writers in general were prone to exaggeration when it came to these kind of numbers, and I'm wondering if there are any archaeological evidence for this. I'd imagine if there were such a sudden and massive depopulation in the region, it would leave some trace in archaeological evidence, like sudden termination of inhabited settlements, smaller number of burials and changes in settlement patterns. So my question is, what does archaeology say about the depopulation of Gaul after Caesar's conquest?
You'd find elements of answer in this previous post and answer : During the Gallic Wars, around 1/3 of the Gauls died and another third were enslaved. Was this level of violence normal for Romans/peoples of this time ? ( u/Libertat)
To the best of my knowledge no , there's a pretty good answer on This thread that convers the issue , in total it's very unlikely that Ceasar killed that many Gauls although he did inslaved a million of them and the Roman conquest of Gaul was one of the most brutal conquests in History.