THE VALLEY OF THE VEZERE

Whereas successive, so much in France that in Europe, prestigious archaeological discoveries are going on, amateurs of prehistory, professionals of archaeology or the public merely anxious of its origins, continue to grant their preference to Périgord, cradle of the Palaeolithic Franco -Cantabrian art If our vicinities don't seem to have sheltered the first '' `Australopithecus and other cousins of Lucy, they were, Valley of the Vézère among others; through many instances the earth of Homo Sapiens Man of Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon. Our ancestors knew indeed very quickly how to appreciate a privileged middle where underground cave and natural shelters, their first homes, abounded .Also some favourable climatic conditions incited them to settle here definitively.
Certainly several glacial periods the succession of herds, reindeers, of mammoths, of woolly rhinoceros, but the Valley of the Vézère, during these transitions, never became a frozen desert: it preserved during the toughest period of the glacial era a thin ribbon of greenery where man was able to get a stock in game, fish, wood for heat and indispensable alluvial flint to manufacture tools and ells of the time.
If one adds some exceptional conservation conditions? Lascaux immediately comes to the idea, but innumerable are the modest sites that preserved from the erosion vestiges of habitat, one understands better the pre-eminence that the prehistory of the Périgord still exercise. For how decisive they are, these assets would not have had remained if they didn't have ' been catalysed by the archaeological researches of before guard. Long before Boucher de Perthes in the Valley of the Somme, pre-historians precursors are also périgourdinses ...and about two centuries later, their disciples again relying on acquirements of classic adopted sites, exploring at their turn new sites, can rebuild today the epic of hunters of reindeers, bisons and horses of the prehistory. Earth of election of the prehistoric man, cradle of the Palaeolithic archaeology, the Périgord conjugates and declines to perfection about ten millennia of human presence that it is up to you to discover in the least details.

BARA-BAHAN
Very near of the Bugues, this vast underground cave-passageway obstructed by debris constitutes the most decorated western underground cave of the Valley of the Vézère. One notices in it a majority, bovine, ibexes, roe deer, bear) and some attributable classic signs to the Magdalenian.

HOLY CIRQ
Very near of the Eyzieses, but discovered in 1951 only, this small cavity owes its celebrity to an exceptional «anthropoid " engraving of wizard. A few vigorous animalistic engravings notably of horses complete this attributable decor in the beginning and to the middle of the Magdalenian.

BERNIFAL
Formerly discovered, this deep underground cave preserved a near enough general aspect as that known by prehistoric man .it gathers110 engravings and paintings, widespread along its length, black or red, globally attributable to the Magdalenian. Mammoths are the dominant figurations to which are added rarer pictures, humans, negative hands, as well as an asinien. About fifty sign are also present, among others the classic tectiforms of the region.

UNDERGROUND CAVE OF GAUME SOURCE
Sequenced historic monument, the underground cave of Font Gaume is in Aquitaine the last cavity with polychrome paintings open to the public. The discovery in 1901 by Capitain, Breuil, Peyrony of these parietal works of a big aesthetic quality brought a decisive argument besides to the recognition of the Palaeolithic art after controversies caused by Chabot, Altmira,Pair-non-Pair and the Mouthe. More than 200 parietal figurations painted and engraved, organized in composition in stages occupy the four main parts of the long network of 120m.
The thematic, so much animalistic - where dominates the bison - that no representational (quadrangular signs, tectiforms, ect.) reinforces the interest of these artistic testimonies assigned to the Magdalenian that counts among the first big master work of the humanity.

UNDERGROUND CAVE OF THE COMBARELLESS
With more than 600 parietal figurations majorly engraved, the underground cave of the Combarelle discovered in 1901 is considered understandably as one major sanctuary of the Magdalenian culture (to surroundings of 13 000 years). Beyond the site searched by E.Rivière since 1892, two divergent galleries penetrate. The Most important, open to the visit is a narrow passageway of more than 240m long. The pictures of animals, finely engraved rarely drawn in black, evoke a varied fauna including horses, reindeers, ibexes, mammoths, rhinoceros, bear, feline and some bovines,,; the reading of these animal engravings extensively intricate, is facilitated by a realist treatment that distinguishes them from an exceptional whole of about fifty anthropoids faces , more schematic, and of some signs, notably tertiforms.

SHELTER OF PATAUD
Stratigraphic cuts, more than 9 mts of height, permit to trace the prehistoric succession of occupation under the shelter today collapsed. Excavations reveal various camps between 33 000 and 18 000 years. In a portion of the shelter that is still standing, the ceiling preserves a sculpted ibex with bound relief. A museum where original things are exposed as well as results of the prehistory works (panels, models, reconstitutions...), permitting to understand the life of men of Cro-Magnon.

The SHELTER OF FISH
Discovered by Giraux in 1892, the shelter of Fish in Throat of hell waited for 20 years to become famous when was seen, engraved and sculpted in relief to the ceiling of the arch, a superb full size passion. It is about a salmon «becquart «with snub jaw, characteristic of the male exhausted by the sexual intercourse. Engraving dating (toward -25 000 years), of a rare topic (one of the ten recorded parietal fishes) would make the first convincing representation of fish known to the world, testimony of prehistoric fishing activities.