Les Eyzies-de-Tayac and the Vézère Valley

The sun often shines in Périgord, but it is the shadows and silence of the region's decorated caves that are responsible for the fame of the banks of the Vézère and Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, "the world capital of prehistory". It is in the seclusion of the great sanctuaries, where the walls are covered with timeless works of art that visitors perceive the paradox of how long ago their Homo sapiens ancestors lived, and yet how remarkably close they still seem. This valuable visitors' guide reviews past theories formulated after the first discoveries and summarises the results of recent scientific research. These developments are now presented in the new national museum of prehistory at Les Eyzies. Themes such as landscapes, ways of life, dwellings and material culture, burials, art and the first stirrings of symbolic expression, and their evolution during the Palaeolithic era, all enable us to conjure up the life of the long-dead Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon populations.