History of Tayac, Les Eyzies de Tayac

July 9, 2008

Tayac, the tiny but very picturesque village just 10 min. walk from the center of Les Eyzies is often overlooked by the majority of visitors passing through Les Eyzies.
Up untill the early 1900’s Les Eyzies de Tayac was simply known as “Tayac”. Tayac is more than 600 years older than Les Eyzies, and one of the oldest in the Dordogne region.
Tayac is historically extremely rich, it was not just the roaming grounds of our Prehistoric ancestors, but the Celts , Romans and Gauls all left their markings on the area.

In the early 12th century 6 Monks from the Monastery of Paunat were travelling between Monasteries when one of the Monks became very ill, they set up camp in Tayac near a water source. The monk was dieing, but miraculously healed after drinking the water from the “Tayac Source”. To the Monks of Paunat this was a “Sign” and round about 1123 they started building the magnificent and fortified church of Tayac, they called it “St Martin“.
At the same time, the Monks of Paunat started working the land in this lush Vezere valley, they built the farmhouse / monastery, which is now “Ferme de Tayac” that has been completely renovated, and is now a lovely B&B opposite the church.
For hundreds of years the Monks lived here and worked the lands, bit by bit houses were built against the rock.
The water from the “Tayac Source” was taken to other surrounding Monasteries, for it’s healing powers, Tayac was thriving.
Two centuries later, things took a turn, wars were breaking out, armies were constantly attacking areas and strongholds. Religion and all that went with it lost it’s power, and very slowly the life in and around Tayac became what it is today. St. Martin still stands proud, and is without doubt the nicest Fortified Church in the Perigord, the “Tayac Source” is still there, although no longer in use.

During construction for a railroad in 1868, a rock shelter in a limestone cliff was uncovered. Near the back of the shelter, an occupation floor was recognized, and when excavated, it revealed the remains of four adult skeletons, one infant, and some fragmentary bones. The Link between Prehistoric Man and Modern Man had been found in Tayac.

Recommended accommodation in Les Eyzies de Tayac:

Ferme de Tayac B&B in 12th Century former farmhouse / monastery B&B Ferme de Tayac : www.fermedetayac.com Lovely B&B in a 12th Century former farmhouse / monastery opposite the fortified church of St. Martin

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Certified guide to historic Vezere Valley

May 7, 2008

What an incredible day!. We met our guide for the cave region, Bart Vranken, just after breakfast, and before long he had us spellbound. His knowledge of history, art and philosophy was so well integrated, and he is so articulate, that the information came forth like a river, and all we had to do was to stay alert and process it all! This was a man with a plan. Bart arranged for us to be the first tour of the day at Rouffingnac, so no crowds would mar our experience?..

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Old Greetings from Les Eyzies …

April 12, 2008

A collection of old Postcards from Les Eyzies de Tayac.

A special Thank You to Monsieur P Reijnen for sharing these rare postcards with us.

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Vezere Valley’s Prehistoric Underground Museums

January 17, 2008

The most emotional moment of a visit to the prehistoric cave of Lascaux in southwestern France a few weeks ago was seeing handprints of the humans who created the most beautiful art of the Stone Age. They really were there, 15,000 years ago.

Caves decorated with art from the late Paleolithic period, approximately 10,000 to 30,000 years ago, have been found only in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Russia and Mongolia. The largest cluster of Paleolithic art caves dot the Dordogne department of southwestern France the Vezere Valley, which is honeycombed ,with limestone caves and towering cliff shelters eaten out by glaciers and underground rivers as long as 140 million years ago. In this underground network, with constant temperature and humidity and isolation from light, the art has been very well preserved.

The most exciting sites open to visitors in the Dordogne include Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume, with drawings of bison, horses and deer; Combarelles, where Stone Age people left more than 300 engravings, and Cap Blanc, offering 14 animals gracefully sculptured in deep relief.

Cave art had been seen by villagers as least as far back as the 16th century, according to graffiti in the vast cavern at Rouffignac. But it was assumed to be modern until an explorer announced in 1880 that the paintings in the Altamira cave were prehistoric.

The notion of art as ancient as 30,000 years before the birth of Christ was met with skepticism on the ground that it conflicted with Christian belief. Only in the 20th century did scientists agree that humans indeed discovered how to artfully draw, sculpture and carve engravings during the Stone Age.

The Louvre of all the caverns is Lascaux. The cave entrance, less than a mile south of Montignac on the Vezere River, was sealed from harmful air for centuries by landslides. After trees covering the entrance were uprooted by a storm, four teen-agers seeking buried treasure discovered the cave in 1940.

Opened to tourists in 1948, Lascaux had to be closed in 1963 after green algae and white calcium deposits attacked the paintings. An exact copy built in cement nearby was inaugurated in November 1984. The cement cannot be harmed by bacteria and outside air and the paintings are covered with a transparent film.

Contrary to widespread belief, the original Lascaux, guarded by a wire fence and two German shepherds, can be seen by qualified people. Applicants connected with science, journalism, teaching, art, museums, even politics, have received invitations after waiting for months.

On an authorized visit one recent day, a guide, Jacques Marsal, led the way past the dogs and wooden towers with instruments that record humidity, temperature and air pressure in the cave, monitored by the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Visitors must wet the soles of their shoes in antiseptic and descend to the dark, cold cave through three anterooms that keep out air. Then the electric lights go on, and the stereotype of the Stone Age brute is crushed. The cave gleams with delicate drawings in ocher and brick red, outlined in deepest black by artists who were obviously sensitive people. Deer with graceful horns, drawn with sensual lines, recall works of Picasso. The guide’s flashlight plays on a splendid herd of deer, apparently clambering out of water, each with a different expression, each in a different position.

On the cold stone walls, a calf stumbles before a three-sided square that could depict a trap. A horse falls over a cliff, its face showing fright, possibly depicting organized stampedes to slaughter animals.

”The artists painted the outline of each animal all in one movement without hesitation, quite a feat,” says the guide.

The final shock is emerging from the Stone Age cave to see white trails from jet fighters crisscrossing the blue sky. A two-minute walk downhill stands Lascaux II, the cement reproduction built by the owner of the land and the state, now the proprietor.

Molded above ground by 12 Brazilian, Greek and French sculptors over nine years, the cave is a feat in itself as the cement truly resembles rock. A French artist worked seven years with prehistoric tools and pigments to copy the paintings from photographs. The copiers even repeated holes where the prehistoric artists had inserted logs to stand on so they could reach a high ceiling to paint a circle of horses reminiscent of Chinese art.

The reproduction is impressive. But the ancient Lascaux, like any original artwork, is worth the wait. Lascaux II lacks the impact of antiquity, and the drawings appear flat because the real Lascaux walls glisten with crystals.

Some 200 paintings and 1,500 engravings decorate Lascaux I, which is 819 feet long. Lascaux II, 131 feet long, displays 100 or so paintings and no engravings.

Those startling handprints are a frequent motif in art of the late Paleolithic period. Handprints fringe paintings in the Pech Merle grotto, including one of a black polka-dotted horse. Two hundred fifteen handprints, usually of the left hand, decorate the Gargas cave in the Hautes-Pyrenees department near Spain.

Experts say 11 footprints at Pech Merle were those of a woman and child. They believe women and children often visited the caves to see the art, or to worship. The caves are believed to have been sanctuaries, devoted to the worship of animals, magic or the hunt, but scientists do not know for sure. The guides emphasize that prehistoric people were not ”cave men.” Because of the dampness of grottos and the need to build fires, Cro-Magnon people lived only at cave entrances, in minuscule caves or under overhangs of giant cliffs.

Patterns emerge in their art. Most of the subjects are grass-eaters such as horses, bison, deer, reindeer and ibex. Less numerous are meat-eating mammoths and rhinoceroses, which once roamed France, boars, wolves and fox, plus fish, birds and reptiles. A fish was engraved on the ceiling of a riverside shelter north of Les Eyzies, a Dordogne town dotted with prehistoric sites that calls itself the Prehistoric Capital of the World.

Drawings of humans are rare and not realistic. Men appear more often than women (although many prehistoric statuettes of women have been dug from sites throughout the world). In Lascaux, a man falls dead before a bull pierced with a spear, its entrails dangling. Arrows were thrust into men drawn at Lascaux, Pech Merle and Cougnac, north of Cahors. Evidence of war? Experts say flints have not been found in Paleolithic skeletons, but they have in later Neolithic graves after agriculture was discovered and people became property owners, and thus could have been defenders and aggressors.

The Cro-Magnons painted under the light of small stone lamps, which have been found in cave digs. They applied charcoal, ocher or red and yellow pigments of oxidized iron with brushes or their fingers or dabbed on colors with fur or blew them through tubes. Engravings were made with bone, horn or stone.

The art is seldom seen near cave entrances, perhaps for religious reasons – or because paintings near airy entrances did not last. The gigantic grotto at Rouffignac offers a mile and a half ride on a small train to view paintings of mammoths, some overdrawn with graffiti of modern explorers.

At Cap Blanc, near Les Eyzies, a 14,000-year-old frieze of five horses, carved in relief, rivaling those of ancient Greece, was even more ruined by the pickaxes of overenthusiastic diggers in the 20’s.

A visitor can see the major Paleolithic caves in the Dordogne within a week.

Most tours are in French, although descriptive pamphlets in English, Spanish and German are sold in most grottos. Large luxury chain hotels are absent, in favor of small, comfortable hotels.

Perigord and Quercy restaurants serve local specialties such as foie gras, truffles, walnuts and wild mushrooms. Canoeing and swimming in rivers and visiting more chateaus than are found in the Loire valley are other temptations.

But the passion for prehistory is catching. At La Madeleine, a site near Les Eyzies, prehistoric families lived in a riverside cliff shelter to be near fish. In the ninth century, about 80 people lived higher up, apparently so they could hurl stones on invading Vikings. The visitor turns away from the cliffside village, disappointed. Ninth century? That’s modern.

Our recommended accommodation near Lascaux and all the other Vezere Valley Caves:

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The Dordogne River… the facts

January 16, 2008

Name

Contrary to appearances, the name of the Dordogne is not a recent word resulting from the names of the Dore and the Dogne. It comes from an ancient Durānius, dérived from a preceltic root dur-, dor- (as the Durance).

The medieval forms adopted a redoubled suffix -ononia : Dorononia fluvius (sixth century), Dornonia (eighth century) that evolves in Dordonia (ninth century) by a phenomenon of dissimilation, giving the impression of an etymology *Dore-Dogne.

Geography

The river rises on the flanks of Puy de Sancy (1 885 m) in the mountains of Auvergne, from the confluence of two small torrents above the town of Mont-Dore: the Dore and the Dogne. It flows generally west about 500 km through the Limousin and Périgord regions before flowing into the Gironde, its common estuary with the Garonne, at the “Ambès beak”, in the north of the city of Bordeaux.

Nature

The Dordogne is one of the few rivers in the world that exhibits the phenomenon known as a tidal bore. The Valley of the Dordogne is quite beautiful and contributes significantly to the attractiveness of the region. The main season for tourism in the Valley of the Dordogne is from June to September with July and August being high tide.

Course

The départements of France through which the Dordogne River runs, together with some towns in those départements that are on or quite near the River, are as follows:

The département of Puy-de-Dôme – the towns of Mont-Dore (near the source of the River), La Bourboule
The département of Corrèze – the towns of Argentat and Bort-les-Orgues
The département of Lot – The town of Souillac
The département of Dordogne – The towns of Beynac-et-Cazenac, Sarlat, Saint-Cyprien, and Bergerac
The département of Gironde – the towns of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande and Libourne

Tributaries

Dordogne River in the PérigordMain tributaries from source to mouth:

(R) Rhue
(R) Diège
(R) Luzège
(L) Sumène
(L) Auze
(R) Doustre
(L) Maronne
(L) Cère
(R) Sourdoire
(L) Ouysse
(R) Vézère along which many of the great prehistoric caves of Southwest France are located
(R) Isle
(L) Laurence
N.B. : (R) = right tributary; (L) = left tributary

Canoeing on the Dordogne River

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Castelnaud

December 16, 2007

Castle of Castelnaud

Perched with hillside on left bank of the Dordogne, Castelnaud dominates the small borough coiled with its feet. Its former owners, vassal of kings of England, opposed a long time to their neighbors, the lords de Beynac, faithful to kings de France. If the protagonists of these remote quarrels have all disappeared, the two fortresses always continue their immutable face to face, like a mineral challenge with the lapse of memory and the ravages of time.

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Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley

December 11, 2007

Brief Description

The Vézère valley contains 147 prehistoric sites dating from the Palaeolithic and 25 decorated caves. It is particularly interesting from an ethnological and anthropological, as well as an aesthetic point of view because of its cave paintings, especially those of the Lascaux Cave, whose discovery in 1940 was of great importance for the history of prehistoric art. The hunting scenes show some 100 animal figures, which are remarkable for their detail, rich colours and lifelike quality.

Locations

Communes of Les Eyzies de Tayac, Tursac, Montignac-sur-Vézère, Saint-Leon-sur-Vézère, Marquay, Manaurie-Rouffignac and Saint-Cirq-du Bugue, Department of the Dordogne, Region of Aquitaine
N45 3 27 E1 10 12

Serial ID Number	Name & Location ↓	Coordinates	Date Inscribed
85-001	Abri de Cro-Magnon Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 56 25.6 E1 00 34.6	1979
85-002	Abri du Poisson Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 56 38.8 E0 59 54.2	1979
85-012	Cro de Granville (cro de Rouffignac) Rouffignac-Saint-Cernin-de-Reilhac, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N45 00 31.7 E0 59 15.5	1979
85-003	Font de Gaume Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 56 13.2 E1 01 35.6	1979
85-015	La Madeleine Tursac, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 58 01.3 E1 02 11.1	1979
85-004	La Micoque Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 57 27.6 E1 00 23.5	1979
85-005	La Mouthe Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 55 28.9 E1 01 14.1	1979
85-011	Lascaux Montignac, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N45 03 13.3 E1 10 12.0	1979
85-006	Laugerie basse Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 57 03.8 E0 59 57.5	1979
85-007	Laugerie haute Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 57 11.8 E1 00 12.3	1979
85-010	Le Cap Blanc Marquay, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 56 44.3 E1 05 50.6	1979
85-008	Le Grand Roc Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 56 58.2 E0 59 54.0	1979
85-014	Le Moustier Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 59 39.6 E1 03 35.5	1979
85-009	Les Combarelles Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 56 36.8 E1 02 31.6	1979
85-013	Roc de Saint-Cirq Saint-Cirq, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France	N44 55 33.9 E0 58 02.9	1979

Theory

The Vézère Valley is on a limestone plateau in Southwestern France. It is home to several hidden calcareous caves. This is Lascaux Cave, the most well known. These drawings here date back to the Paleolithic period around 17,000 years ago. The cave was closed in 1972 for preservation work.

Subsequently decorated grottoes of the Vézère Valley including this Lascaux cave have been inscribed on the list of World Heritage. In this drawing, the front foot of the horse was drawn over the bulky rock surface to give a solid impression. The technique is used to express a galloping horse. This drawing of cattle has many layers. The front red figure is a cow, and behind her is black ox with large horns.

Why did man start to draw? Dr. Michel Lorblanchet has proposed a new theory through practical archaeology that takes account of the painting materials and artistic techniques of the time. He put charcoal in his mouth and sprays it onto the wall, exactly as people during the Paleolithic period used to do. By blowing onto the rocks, they believed that it would breathe life into something inside it. People in those days believed that some kind of supernatural power existed inside the rocks. They tried to capture this great power by projecting images of wild animals onto them. Signs of human imagination have been found here. This unicorn is drawn on the closest wall from the entrance of the Lascaux cave.

People stopped painting in these caves about 10000 years ago. Once they had mastered the skills of stock farming, they started to regard themselves as superior to other animals and with that change the Great Spirit in the caves was gradually forgotten.

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Édouard Lartet

December 6, 2007

Édouard Lartet (May 15, 1801–January 28, 1871) was a French paleontologist.

The geologist Louis Lartet discovered the first five skeletons in March 1868 in the Cro-Magnon rock shelter at Les Eyzies

Lartet was born near Castelnau-Barbarens, departement of Gers, France, where his family had lived for more than five hundred years. He was educated for the law at Auch and Toulouse, but having private means elected to devote himself to science. The then recent work of Georges Cuvier on fossil mammalia encouraged Lartet in excavations which led in 1834 to his first discovery of fossil remains in the neighborhood of Auch. Thenceforward he devoted his whole time to a systematic examination of the French caves, his first publication on the subject being The Antiquity of Man in Western Europe (1860), followed in 1861 by New Researches on the Coexistence of Man and of the Great Fossil Mammifers characteristic of the Last Geological Period. In this paper he made public the results of his discoveries in the cave of Aurignac, where evidence existed of the contemporaneous existence of man and extinct mammals.

In his work in the Périgord district Lartet had the aid of Henry Christy. The first account of their joint researches appeared in a paper descriptive of the Dordogne caves and contents, published in Revue archéologique (1864). The important discoveries in the Madeleine cave and elsewhere were published by Lartet and Christy under the title Reliquiae Aquitanicae, the first part appearing in 1865. Christy died before the completion of the work, but Lartet continued it until his breakdown in health in 1870. His son Louis Lartet followed in his father’s footsteps.

The most modest and one of the most illustrious of the founders of modern palaeontology, Lartet’s work had previously been publicly recognized by his nomination as an officer of the Légion d’honneur; and in 1848 he had had the offer of a political post. In 1857 he had been elected a foreign member of the Geological Society of London, and a few weeks before his death he had been made professor of palaeontology at the museum of the Jardin des Plantes. He died at Séissan.

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Les Eyzies and the Cro Magnon

December 6, 2007

Skull of Cro Magnon found in Les Eyzies Cro-Magnons are recognized as the earliest know race of modern humans, Homo sapiens. Generally considered the earliest European descendants, Cro-Magnons lived between 10,000 and 35,000 years ago. The first Cro-Magnon specimens were discovered in France in 1868 along with many sophisticated tools, artifacts and cave paintings. Cro-Magnons are credited with creating the first calendar nearly 34,000 years ago

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Paleolithic period

December 6, 2007

Paleolithic period or Old Stone Age, the earliest period of human development and the longest phase of mankind’s history. It is approximately coextensive with the Pleistocene geologic epoch, beginning about 2 million years ago and ending in various places between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, when it was succeeded by the Mesolithic period. By far the most outstanding feature of the Paleolithic period was the evolution of the human species from an apelike creature, or near human, to true Homo sapiens (see human evolution). This development was exceedingly slow and continued through the three successive divisions of the period, the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic. The most abundant remains of Paleolithic cultures are a variety of stone tools whose distinct characteristics provide the basis for a system of classification containing several toolmaking traditions or industries.

The Lower Paleolithic Period

The oldest recognizable tools made by members of the family of man are simple stone choppers, such as those discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. These tools may have been made over 1 million years ago by Australopithecus, ancestor of modern humans. Fractured stones called eoliths have been considered the earliest tools, but it is impossible to distinguish man-made from naturally produced modifications in such stones. Lower Paleolithic stone industries of the early species of humans called Homo erectus include the Choukoutienian of China and the Clactonian, Chellean-Abbevillian, Acheulian and Levalloisian represented at various sites in Europe, Africa, and Asia, from 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Stone tools of this period are of the core type, made by chipping the stone to form a cutting edge, or of the flake type, fashioned from fragments struck off a stone. Hand axes were the typical tool of these early hunters and food-gatherers.

The Middle Paleolithic Period

The Middle Paleolithic period includes the Mousterian culture, often associated with Neanderthal man, an early form of humans, living between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. Neanderthal remains are often found in caves with evidence of the use of fire. Neanderthals were hunters of prehistoric mammals, and their cultural remains, though unearthed chiefly in Europe, have been found also in N Africa, Palestine, and Siberia. Stone tools of this period are of the flake tradition, and bone implements, such as needles, indicate that crudely sewn furs and skins were used as body coverings. Since the dead were painted before burial, a kind of primitive religion may have been practiced.

The Upper Paleolithic Period

In the Upper Paleolithic period Neanderthal man disappears and is replaced by a variety of Homo sapiens such as Cro-Magnon man and Grimaldi man. This, the flowering of the Paleolithic period, saw an astonishing number of human cultures, such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Perigordian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian, rise and develop in the Old World. The beginnings of communal hunting and extensive fishing are found here, as is the first conclusive evidence of belief systems centering on magic and the supernatural. Pit houses, the first man-made shelters, were built, sewn clothing was worn, and sculpture and painting originated. Tools were of great variety, including flint and obsidian blades and projectile points. It is probable that the people of the Aurignacian culture migrated to Europe after developing their distinctive culture elsewhere, perhaps in Asia. Their stone tools are finely worked, and they made a typical figure eight-shaped blade. They also used bone, horn, and ivory and made necklaces and other personal ornaments. They carved the so-called Venus figures, ritual statuettes of bone, and made outline drawings on cave walls.

The hunters of the Solutrean phase of the Upper Paleolithic entered Europe from the east and ousted many of their Aurignacian predecessors. The Solutrean wrought extremely fine spearheads, shaped like a laurel leaf. The wild horse was their chief quarry. The Solutrean as well as remnants of the Aurignacian were replaced by the Magdalenian, the final, and perhaps most impressive, phase of the Paleolithic period. Here artifacts reflect a society made up of communities of fishermen and reindeer hunters. Surviving Magdalenian tools, which range from tiny microliths to implements of great length and fineness, indicate an advanced technique. Weapons were highly refined and varied, the atlatl first came into use, and along the southern edge of the ice sheet boats and harpoons were developed. However, the crowning achievement of the Magdalenian was its cave paintings, the culmination of Paleolithic art.

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Les Eyzies de Tayac

History of Tayac, Les Eyzies de Tayac

Certified guide to historic Vezere Valley

Old Greetings from Les Eyzies …

Vezere Valley’s Prehistoric Underground Museums

The Dordogne River… the facts

Castelnaud

Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley

Édouard Lartet

Les Eyzies and the Cro Magnon

Paleolithic period

The Lower Paleolithic Period

The Middle Paleolithic Period

The Upper Paleolithic Period

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