Vacation Dordogne» Dordogne accommodation, tourist attractions, towns & villages, history and lots more http://vacationdordogne.com Dordogne B&B Accommodation. Dordogne Bed & Breakfast holiday at it's best. Mon, 31 May 2010 01:02:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Lascaux http://vacationdordogne.com/lascaux http://vacationdordogne.com/lascaux#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:47:59 +0000 admin http://vacationdordogne.com/?p=169 Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the Dordogne département. They contain some of the most well-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be 16,000 years old. They primarily consist of realistic images of large animals, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in the area at the time. Lascaux was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in 1979.

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The cave was discovered on 12 September 1940 by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, as well as Ravidat’s dog, Robot. Public access was made easier after World War II. By 1955, the carbon dioxide produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the art. After the cave was closed, the paintings were restored to their original state, and are now monitored on a daily basis. Rooms in the cave include The Great Hall of the Bulls, the Lateral Passage, the Shaft of the Dead Man, the Chamber of Engravings, the Painted Gallery, and the Chamber of Felines.

Lascaux II, a replica of two of the cave halls – the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery – was opened in 1983, 200 meters from the original. Reproductions of other Lascaux artwork can be seen at the Centre of Prehistoric Art at Le Thot, France.

The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures. Many are too faint to discern, while others have deteriorated. Over 900 can be identified as animals, and 605 of these have been precisely identified. There are also many geometric figures. Of the animals, horses predominate, with 364 images. There are 90 paintings of stags. Also represented are cattle and bison, each representing 4-5% of the images. A smattering of other images include seven felines, a bird, a bear, a rhinoceros, and a human. Among the most famous images are four huge, black bulls or aurochs in the Hall of the Bulls. There are no images of reindeer, even though that was the principal source of food for the artists.>

The four black bulls are the dominant figures among the 36 animals represented in the Hall of the Bulls. One of the bulls is 17 feet long — the largest animal discovered so far in cave art. The bulls appear to be in motion. The most famous section of this cave is the great hall of the bulls, where there are bulls, horses, and stags.

A painting referred to as “The Crossed Bison” and found in the chamber called the Nave is often held as an example of the skill of the Paleolithic cave painters. The crossed hind legs show the ability to use perspective in a manner that wasn’t seen again until the 15th century.
Of the non-figurative images, one researcher has speculated that the painted dots are maps of the night sky, since the patterns correlate with various constellations.

]]> http://vacationdordogne.com/lascaux/feed 0 The Vezere Valley http://vacationdordogne.com/the_vezere_valley http://vacationdordogne.com/the_vezere_valley#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:46:16 +0000 admin http://vacationdordogne.com/?p=1 In and around the town of Les Eyzies de Tayac are a series of prehistoric rock dwellings, the caves include some of the most significant archaeological finds of the Upper Paleolithic (from about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago) and Middle Paleolithic (200,000 to 40,000 years ago) periods; they are especially noted for their extensive wall drawings. Situated in the Vézère Valley (the location of some 150 archaeological sites) the Les Eyzies de Tayac caves are among a series of decorated caves in the area that were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
Following the discovery of flint and bone splinters in the area in 1862, a series of excavations were undertaken by the French geologist Édouard Lartet and the English banker Henry Christy.
Their work quickly established Les Eyzies-de-Tayac as the principal archaeological site for the Upper Paleolithic Period. Among their discoveries were the multicoloured animal drawings of the Font de Gaume cave and an incredible display of stalactites and stalagmites in the Grand Roc. A rock shelter at La Madeleine (the type site for the Magdalenian culture) yielded bone and antler tools. The cave of Le Moustier is the type site of the Mousterian industry, a tool culture known for its flake implements.
Cro-Magnon is the name of a rock shelter near Les Eyzies de Tayac, where several prehistoric skeletons were found in 1868. Sent to the site, the French geologist Louis Lartet began excavations in which he established the existence of five archaeological layers covered with ash. The age of the human remains found in the topmost layer (along with worked flint and the bones of animals of species now extinct) is Upper Paleolithic (c. 35,000-10,000 years ago), but the attribution of these to a clearly defined Upper Paleolithic culture is less definite. Traditionally regarded as Aurignacian, since typically Aurignacian artifacts were found in the rock shelter, they could be more recent, and it has been suggested that they should be assigned to the Perigordian (a separate industry covering approximately the same time period as the Aurignacian), which would give an age of about 25,000 BC.

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