Lascaux is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 parietal wall paintings cover the interior walls and ceilings of the cave. The paintings represent primarily large animals, typical local contemporary fauna that correspond with the fossil record of the Upper Paleolithic in the area. They are the combined effort of many generations and, with continued debate, the age of the paintings is now usually estimated at around 17,000 years. Because of the outstanding prehistoric art in the cave, Lascaux was inducted into the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979, as an element of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley.
The Cave of Altamira is a cave complex, located near the historic town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. It is renowned for prehistoric cave art featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of contemporary local fauna and human hands. The earliest paintings were applied during the Upper Paleolithic, around 36,000 years ago. The site was discovered in 1868 by Modesto Cubillas and subsequently studied by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola.
The Magdalenian cultures are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. It is named after the type site of La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley, commune of Tursac, in France's Dordogne department.
Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil is a former commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Les Eyzies.
The Vézère is a 211-km-long river in southwestern France. It is an important tributary to the Dordogne. Its source is in the northwestern part of the elevated plateau known as the Massif Central. It flows into the Dordogne near Le Bugue. A tributary of the Vézère is the Corrèze.
The Cave of the Trois-Frères is a cave in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings. It is located in Montesquieu-Avantès, in the Ariège département. The cave is named for three brothers, Max, Jacques, and Louis Begouën, who, along with their father Comte Henri Begouën, discovered it in 1914. The drawings of the cave were made famous in the publications of the Abbé Henri Breuil. The cave art appears to date to approximately 13,000 BC.
Cueva de La Pasiega, or Cave of La Pasiega, situated in the Spanish municipality of Puente Viesgo, is one of the most important monuments of Paleolithic art in Cantabria. It is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List since July 2008, as part of the inscription: Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain.
The Cave of Niaux is located in the Niaux commune, Ariège département in southwestern France as part of a wider geological system that includes the Sabart Cave and Lombrives Cave in the hill of Cap de la Lesse de Bialac.
The Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in France since 1979. It specifically lists 15 prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley in the Dordogne department, mostly in and around Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, which has been called the "Capital of Prehistory". This valley is exceptionally rich in prehistoric sites, with more than 150 known sites including 25 decorated caves, and has played an essential role in the study of the Paleolithic era and its art. Three of the sites are the namesakes for prehistoric periods; the Micoquien, Mousterian, and Magdalenian. Furthermore, the Cro-Magnon rock shelter gave its name to the Cro-Magnon, the generic name for the European early modern humans. Many of the sites were discovered or first recognised as significant and scientifically explored by the archaeologists Henri Breuil and Denis Peyrony in the early twentieth century, while Lascaux, which has the most exceptional rock art of these, was discovered in 1940.
The Rouffignac cave, in the French commune of Rouffignac-Saint-Cernin-de-Reilhac in the Dordogne département, contains over 250 engravings and cave paintings dating back to the Upper Paleolithic. In conjunction with other caves and abris of the Vézère valley, the Rouffignac cave was classified a Monument historique in 1957 and a World Heritage Site in 1979 by UNESCO as part of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley.
Raymonden is a prehistoric cave near Chancelade in the French département Dordogne. The cave was inhabited during the Upper Paleolithic and contained, besides many artefacts, a human skeleton.
Les Combarelles is a cave in Les Eyzies de Tayac, Dordogne, France, which was inhabited by Cro-Magnon people between approximately 13,000 to 11,000 years ago. Holding more than 600 prehistoric engravings of animals and symbols, the two galleries in the cave were crucial in the re-evaluation of the mental and technical capabilities of these prehistoric humans around the turn of the 20th century. In 1979, along with other nearby paleolithic sites and cave paintings, the cave was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley.
The Villars Cave, in French Grotte de Villars or Grotte du Cluzeau, was occupied during the Lower Magdalenian by Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers. The cave is part of the French commune of Villars in the northern Dordogne département. Besides its enormous wealth in beautiful stalactites, stalagmites and similar calcite deposits it contains cave paintings and some engravings. The Villars Cave and the Rouffignac Cave are the biggest known cave systems in the Dordogne.
Laugerie-Basse is an important Upper Paleolithic archaeological site within the territory of the French commune Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil in Dordogne. It is known for several works of art from the Magdalenian. In 1979, Laugerie-Basse, along with other nearby paleolithic sites, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley.
The Marsoulas Cave in southwestern France, near Marsoulas in the Haute-Garonne, is a small cave notable for its archaeological wealth, including Paleolithic cave paintings and ornaments from the Magdalenian. It consists of a straight gallery about 100 m (330 ft) long with parietal art along the entire length of the cave. The art includes human and animal figures as well as geometric forms and has been described as being of "profound stylistic originality with few equivalents in the region from the same period". The prehistoric artists who produced these used the varied topography of the cave and ceiling to produce three-dimensional engravings and paintings in scales ranging between 2.2 m (7.2 ft) to tiny miniatures.
The caves of Arcy-sur-Cure are a series of caves located on the commune of Arcy-sur-Cure, Burgundy, France. Some of them contained archaeological artefacts, from the Mousterian to Gallo-Roman times.
The Pair-non-Pair Cave is located near the village of Prignac-et-Marcamps, Aquitaine:Gironde (33) department in France. Only discovered in 1881 it is known for remarkable prehistoric parietal engravings - petroglyphic representations of wild animals, "which rank among the most ancient examples of art made by prehistoric" humans, dating back to between 30.000 and 25.000 BP, the Aurignacian cultural period of the Upper Paleolithic.
The abri de Cap Blanc is a prehistoric limestone rock shelter with Magdalenian animal sculptures. It is in the Marquay commune on the right bank of the Beune River, a few kilometers west of Eyzies-de-Tayac, in Dordogne.
Castel Merle is a complex of 10 prehistoric rock shelters in Sergeac, in the Dordogne region of France. It is close to the Lascaux rock art caves and is situated in the region which forms the Unesco World Heritage site Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley, but is not officially a part of it. The finds in the shelters date to the Mousterian and Magdalenian periods, or between 160,000 and 12,000 years ago. The most important of the 10 shelters is the Reverdit rockshelter.
