This essay compares the first evolutionary syntheses on human prehistory formulated by John Lubbock (1865) in Britain and Gabriel de Mortillet (1869-1883) in France, which both brought the question of human evolution in multidisciplinary light by borrowing tools from archaeology and ethnology rather than from biology. This paper shows that these syntheses displayed similarities as well as differences, and intends to give a comparative assessment of some intellectual and social characteristics of British and French nineteenth-century prehistoric archaeology. Lubbock's and Mortillet's syntheses relied heavily on archaeological collections but these were of different content and status. They stressed progress but they were also organized in accordance to different visions of evolution. Both were articulated from political and religious standpoints, but these standpoints were different in their content and tone.