The current location of Dune du Pilat housed temporary protohistoric camps for activities related to sea salt mining. The first archaeological discoveries began in 1922. On December 31, 2013, a tourist found a funeral urn and an accessory vase from the Iron Age, 800 years BC in the sand at the foot of the dune.

An excavation site mobilized about ten amateur archaeologists for two weeks in October 2014 to clarify the stratigraphic and environmental context of the reported discoveries.