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. 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.
Cro-Magnon is an Aurignacian site, located in a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, a hamlet in the commune of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, southwestern France.
Périgordian is a term for several distinct but related Upper Palaeolithic cultures which are thought by some archaeologists to represent a contiguous tradition. Thought to have existed between c.35,000 BP and c.20,000 BP the Perigordian was theorized by prehistorians.
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.
Marcel Otte is a professor of Prehistory at the Université de Liège, Belgium. He is a specialist in Religion, Arts, Sociobiology, and the Upper Palaeolithic times of Europe and Central Asia. In the book Speaking Australopithecus he argues from the archaeological point of view Benozzo's hypothesis that human language appeared with Australopithecus, between 4 and 3 million years ago.
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 from the right near Le Bugue. The river Corrèze is a tributary of the Vézère.
Hallam Leonard Movius was an American archaeologist most famous for his work on the Palaeolithic period.
Bison Licking Insect Bite is a prehistoric carving from the Upper Paleolithic, found at Abri de la Madeleine near Tursac in Dordogne, France, the type-site of the Magdalenian culture, which produced many fine small carvings in antler or bone.
The Micoquien is an early Middle Paleolithic industry, that is found in the Eemian and in an early episode of the Würm glaciation. The Micoquien is distinguished technologically by the appearance of distinctly asymmetrical bifaces. Its discoverer and namer was the archeologist and art trader Otto Hauser. Hauser then sold a great number of so-called Micoque-wedges that he found in excavations in La Micoque to museums and collectors.
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 archaeological site Abri de la Madeleine is a rock shelter under an overhanging cliff situated near Tursac, in the Dordogne département of the Aquitaine région of southwestern France. It represents the type site of the Magdalenian culture of the Upper Paleolithic. The shelter was also occupied during the Middle Ages. The medieval castle of Petit Marsac stands on the top of the cliff just above the shelter.
Jacques Jaubert is a French prehistorian and professor of Paleolithic archaeology at the University of Bordeaux.
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.
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 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.
Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ) was a culture or technocomplex (industry) dating to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, about 45,000 years ago. It is characterised by leaf points made on long blades, which were traditionally thought to have been made by the last Neanderthals, although some researchers have suggested that it could be a culture of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe. It is rarely found, but extends across northwest Europe from Wales to Poland.
Arago cave is a prehistoric site in the community of Tautavel, in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales. It is a large cavity overlooking a perennial stream called the Verdouble. Human remains attributed to the Tautavel Man and the lithic remnants of the Lower Paleolithic were discovered in the cave.
The Szeleta Culture is a transitional archaeological culture between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Palaeolithic, found in Austria, Moravia, northern Hungary, and southern Poland. It is dated to 44,000 to 40,000 years ago, a period when both Neanderthals and modern humans were present in Europe. Most experts think that it is a Neanderthal culture, but the issue is debated. It is named after Szeleta Cave in the Bükk Mountains in Hungary.
Gallic horse, also known as Equus caballus gallicus, is a prehistoric subspecies of Equus caballus that lived in the Upper Paleolithic. It first appeared in the Aurignacian period because of climatic changes and roamed the territory of present-day France during the Gravettian and up to the end of the Solutrean. Its fossils, dated from 40,000 to around 15,000 years BC, are close to those of Equus caballus germanicus and may not correspond to a valid subspecies. First described by François Prat in 1968, it is around 1.40 m (4.6 ft) tall and differs from Equus caballus germanicus mainly in its dentition and slightly smaller size.
The National Museum of Prehistory is a French institution founded in 1918 by Denis Peyrony in the commune of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, in the Dordogne. Officially inaugurated on September 30, 1923, it is housed in what was formerly the Château de Tayac, purchased for this purpose by the State in 1913. In 2004, a new museum, designed by Jean-Pierre Buffi, was inaugurated on the emblematic cliff face of Les Eyzies.
