Caves

It's a strange idea to walk around caves and shelter houses where people lived tens of thousands of years ago.

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac is called the capital of prehistory. Located along the Vézere, the river of choice for a journey of discovery into prehistoric life. It's a strange idea to walk around caves and shelter houses where people lived tens of thousands of years ago.

There is a variety of caves to visit. From caves with stalagmites and stalactites, the stalactite caves, to caves with the most fantastic wall drawings. Most drawings on a cave wall almost always depict hunting. Mostly bison, mammoths, reindeer, horses and aurochs. Occasionally a fish or snake is encountered, images of a human being are rare.
The youngest drawings are about 10,000 years old, the oldest is unknown.
Well-known caves with paintings in the immediate vicinity are Font de Gaume (3 km), Cap Blanc (5 km), cave du Sorcier (8 km), Lascaux II (23 km) and the cave of Rouffignac (20 km) where one can find a train enters.

Caves with stalactite formations in the area are: Grand Roc (3 km), Gouffre de Proumeyssac (13 km), Grotte de Maxange (22 km)
Mariette regularly gives Dutch tours in the Bernifal cave (5 km) in the spring and summer. This beautiful private cave is still completely in its original state with stalactite formations and prehistoric paintings from 15 to 20,000 years old.
The old French owner himself goes along with a large flashlight to show his visitors everything. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to visit the original Lascaux because the drawings deteriorated too much due to the large number of visitors. Lascaux II is an almost exact copy of the original and allows every tourist to see this phenomenon.

Presumably the people did not live in the caves but they were intended as a kind of sacred space, to wish a good hunt or to give thanks for a good hunt. The people themselves lived under a shelter, an overhanging rock wall. These were shielded from the weather with animal skins.