History of the Grand Roc

November 29, 2007

In 1922, Jean Maury, who was then an archaeologist at Laugerie Basse, noticed a small natural terrace halfway up the great cliff of the Grand Roc.

He quickly climbed up to discover a small crack giving way to a slow flowing spring. Unaware of the origin of this flow, this inquiring mind rapidly imagined that a hidden cavity might reveal the source. After two years of hard work and a last mining foray on April 29, 1924, Jean Maury, his sister and daughter, entered the untouched cave.

“Shouts of joy and the national anthem first saluted the discovery. We could admire marvellous stalactites, whereas other strange forms, very clear and surprising, looked as if they had never been seen by anyone before, and others seemed to come straight out of unrealizable dreams - until the candles we used to light up the way began to be too small for us to continue. La CroixBut at what point had we entered the cave? We passed this column again with the form of a cross, which we identified as the central point. After groping along for a while, we heard our parents calling and followed their voices to find, at last, the fox hole through which we had come. Drained of all anxiety, we presented ourselves proudly in our soaked clothes spattered with mud, filled with enthusiasm by what we had seen.”Ouverture de la grotte en 1927

The Grand Roc cave opened in 1927; following the discovery, 3 years were necessary to install the interior and the exterior of the cave.

The first visitors only had candles, hence a quite picturesque visit, during which not much could be seen. Acetylene lamps came later and in 1934 the electricity was installed. In 1993, the lighting of the cave was entirely reorganized. Engineers managed to conciliate the various features of the site (fragility, difficult access, necessary preservation) with a genuine artistic mise en scène of all crystallizations.

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The work of Denis Peyrony (1869-1954)

November 28, 2007

 The archeological history of Les Eyzies began officially in 1863 when Lartet and Christy excavated the cave at Les Eyzies (or Richard?s cave). After only a few months, several sites were discovered and excavated as they searched for proof of antidiluvean man?s existence.The sites of Gorge d?Enfer, Laugerie Haute, Le Moustier and la Madeleine were thus revealed to the scientific world. Following these discoveries and their publication of The Reliquiae Aquitanicae in 1875, fortuitious finds and organised excavations became more and more numerous, (Cro-Magnon, Laugerie Basse etc), all attracting both collectors of fine objects and the first real prehistorians, such as E. Rivière, E.Cartailhac and L.Capitan. In 1891,Denis Peyrony, a true Périgourdin,born at Cussac in Dordogne 20 years earlier, was appointed school master at Les Eyzies. When he met Dr Capitan, 15 years his senior, in 1894, he was literally inoculated with the prehistory virus. Their first research and discoveries together were to multiply at a dizzy rate. With the young abbot Breuil, they discovered the caves at Combarelles and Font de Gaume on the 8th and 12th September 1901. These were the most famous of their discoveries and perhaps overshadowed many others,for in the field of cave art we owe him the discovery of Teyjat, Bernifal, La Calévie etc . This remarkable man of the work field never tired, and it would be almost impossible to give details of his excavations. It is simpler to say that they also yielded prestigious monographs and around 200 articles and scientific works. His chronology of the Mousterian and the Upper Paleolithic are still widely used as references today. He and Capitan assembled an exceptional collection of prehistoric objects in less than 10 years and it was to become the base collection of the National Prehistory Museum and also contributed largely to the greatest French institutes such as the Museum of National Antiquities. We owe Denis Peyrony the merit, too, of being the first person to be concerned about the preservation of Périgord?s archeological heritage. It was high time time to be putting a stop to the pilfering of sites, which, in the absence of all legislation, were left to the prowl of amateur antique dealers , to barely scrupulous scientists or even to internatoinally based racketeers like the Swiss German, Otto Hauser. The latter had forged himself a reputation for his plundering in the area since 1908:- the scandal of the Laussel sculpture,the skeletons of Le Moustier and Combe Capelle, acquired by the Berlin Museum and the aborted one at the Poisson shelter,(when the ?antique dealer? was expelled), just to name a few. In a highly patriotic atmosphere and from 1913 onwards, the history of the Museum at Les Eyzies became inseparable from that of its promoter, Denis Peyrony. He had the state buy the ruined castle at this date, and installed a storage for excavations plus a proper museum there. By a stroke of good fortune the forerunner of modern archeology was to encounter this fine building, itself set on a Magdalenean site. The symbolic meeting has been underlined many a time. Reconstruction of the building began in August 1914 but four out of the five labourers were mobilised in the first world- wide conflicts. However, in 1918, three rooms were already accessible to the public and the official opening was in 1923. The Minister of Beaux Arts, Paul Léon, opened the room on the 3rd floor and unveiled Darde?s statue of primitive man, in 1931, with great pomp and ceremony. D.Peyrony, already appointed responsible for the mission of the Ministry of Public Instruction in 1910,was to hold concurrently, the position of Museum Curator in 1928 and Inspector of Historical Monuments in 1929. He thus ensured the supervision, the management and the protection of the regions? most important sites. It was he too who was responsible for the creation of Les Eyzies? Tourist Information Office. His career had begun in general education and he doubtless was extremely sensitive in this field too. The Information Office was offering tours to a dozen important prehistoric sites as early as in 1920. Denis Peyrony, pioneer in scientific archeological research had infact just put this modest village (future World Capital of Prehistory ),on to the road to cultural tourism , a road it would no longer leave.

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History of the National Prehistory Museum

November 28, 2007

Les Eyzies Castle before reconstruction To say how long cliff dwellings have existed at Les Eyzies may be an obvious statement to make, but it is nevertheless necessary. The privileged position of its upper cliff terrace, overlooking a vast hunting ground and a main passing through place for reindeer, was, without a doubt, the first reason that Magdalenians chose this exact spot 12,000 years ago.Traces of their settlings can still be seen, lodged between the the castle?s two main buildings, where excavations were carried out at the beginning of the XXth century. But what happened in between these two eras? After a medieval intermediate period, of which little is known, even today,(the numerous scars in the rock:- sockets for posts and beams,chanelling for water and man-made cavities probably date from this period),the history of Les Eyzies? castle needs to be traced. Contrary to assertions in local litterature, this solid structure was built relatively recently and the private family history of the Lords of Beynac involved in its origin.

The castle was mentioned for the first time in 1585, in Jeanne de Campnac?s act of donation to her youngest son Jean-Guy de Beynac. Several years before, on 11th December 1578, Jean-Guy was given the right to build a fortified house wherever it suited him. We owe Les Eyzies? castle, therefore, to this highly colourful character who appears to have come from a swashbuckling novel..He was part of a league and compromised during the Duke of Bouillon?s conspiracy, condemned to death, then pardonned by Henry the IVth. Jean-Guy had certainly measured the srategic position of Les Eyzies, both well sheltered and exposed , at the confluent of the Beune and the Vézère, which were almost obligatory communication routes in this region of thick forests. A quarter of a century after it was built, the castle was very nearly razed to the ground by decision of the private Council in March 1606 ,but Turenne intervened and had the threat suspended. After Jean-Guy?s death, around 1615, his heirs only modified the building very slightly and the family was not to be spared by the fate of arms, for 3 of their sons died on Louis X1Vth battle fields.

In 1748, the castle and grounds fell, by marriage, to Elisabeth de la Borie de Campagne who lived there until she died. Her grandson, Géraud wanted to renovate the building, but the Revolution put an end to that and he was forced to emigrate.By a tragic irony of fate,François Lassudrie bought the castle in the year X1…..and turned it into a stone quarry! This is when dismantling began- to be carried on by his heirs, till ,in the year 1846, the Esclafer family saved it through their purchase. It was high time too, all that was left of the ruins were a few cyclopean walls some mullion ribs and the base of a watchtower. Inside, two vaulted rooms and two monumental fire places had managed to escape damage. At the turn of the XXth century, the future of the castle became that of the archeology museum, but there lies another story……

The Museum today

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History of the Vezere

November 28, 2007

In and around the town of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac are a series of prehistoric rock dwellings, the caves include some of the mostsignificant archaeological finds of the Upper Paleolithic (from about 40,000 to10,000 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 VézèreValley (the location of some 150 archaeological sites) the Eyzies-de-Tayac caves are among a series of decorated grottoes 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.

In Paleontology, the term Perigordian industry is given to the tool tradition of prehistoric men in Upper Paleolithic Europe that followed the Mousterian industry, was contemporary in part with the Aurignacian, and was succeeded by the Solutrean. Perigordian tools included denticulate (toothed) tools of the type used earlier in the Mousterian tradition and stone knives with one sharp edge and one flat edge, much like modern metal knives. Other Upper Paleolithic tool types are also found in Perigordian culture, including scrapers, borers, burins (woodworking tools rather like chisels), and composite tools; bone implements are relatively uncommon.

The Perigordian has two main stages.

The earlier stage, called Châtelperronian, is concentrated in the Périgord region of France but is believed to have originated in southwestern Asia; it is distinguished from contemporary stone tool culture complexes by the presence of curved-backed knives (knives sharpened both on the cutting edge and the back).
The later stage is called Gravettian and is found in France, Italy, and Russia (there termed Eastern Gravettian). Gravettian people in the west hunted horses to the near exclusion of the reindeer and bison that other contemporaries hunted; in Russia Gravettians concentrated on mammoths. Both appear to have hunted communally, using stampedes and pitfalls to kill large numbers of animals at one time. Gravettians
in the east used large mammoth bones as part of the building material for winter houses; mammoth fat was used to keep fires burning. Gravettian peoples made rather crude, fat “Venus” figurines, used red ochre as pigment, and fashioned jewelry out of shells, animal teeth, and ivory.
Archaeological finds in the Perigord, made another profound impact on the study of religion when in 1841 the discovery of prehistoric human artifacts and later finds gave clues to early man’s magico-religious beliefs and practices. These discoveries, notably the cave paintings in the Dordogne, northern and eastern Spain, and elsewhere, gave scholars encouragement to work out the course of man’s religious evolution from earliest times. Spectacular as prehistoric archaeology was proving to be, however, it could only yield fragments of a whole that is difficult to reconstruct. Even the famous cave paintings of Les Trois Frères, in the Dordogne, for example, which portray among other things a dancing human with antlers on his head and a stallion’s tail decorating his rear, does not yield an unambiguous interpretation: is the dancing figure a sorcerer, a priest, or what? He very likely is a priest presenting himself as a divine figure connected with animal fertility and hunting rites–but this remains as only an educated guess. Hence, it became attractive to many scholars of religion to try to supplement ancient archaeological evidence with data drawn from contemporary primitive peoples–i.e., to interpret the prehistoric Stone Age through present-day stone age cultures. This procedure has several pitfalls–partly because contemporary “primitives” are themselves the product of a long historical process and because their culture may have changed over the millennia in many and various ways.
Lascaux: A cave containing one of the most outstanding displays of prehistoric art yet discovered, located above the Vézère River valley near Montignac. It is a short distance upstream from another major cave-art site, Eyzies-de-Tayac. The two sites, with some two dozen other painted caves and 150 prehistoric settlements in the Vézère valley, were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1979. Discovered by four teenage boys in September 1940, the cave was first studied by the French archaeologist Henri-Édouard-Prosper Breuil. It consists of a main cavern (some 66 feet [20 meters] wide and 16 feet [5 meters] high) and several steep galleries, all magnificently decorated with engraved, drawn, and painted figures.
In all there are some 600 painted and drawn animals and symbols, along with nearly 1,500 engravings. The paintings were done on a light background in various shades of yellow, red, brown, and black. Among the most remarkable pictures are four huge aurochs (some 16 feet long), their horns portrayed in a “twisted perspective”; a curious two-horned animal (misleadingly nicknamed the “unicorn”), perhaps intended as a mythical creature; several red deer; bovids; great herds of horses; the heads and necks of several stags (3 feet [1 meter] tall), which appear to be swimming across a river; a series of six felines; two male bison; and a rare narrative composition.The narrative scene has been variously interpreted but is probably based on shamanism. Its central figure is a bison that appears to have been speared in the abdomen; hanging, or spilling, from the animal near the spear is a lined, ovular sack that may represent entrails. In front of the bison’s horns, and falling away from the animal, is a bird-headed man–the only human figure depicted in the cave–with an erect phallus. Just below, or beside, the man is a stick with a bird ornament as a finial. Another spear is near the man’s feet, and off to the left a rhinoceros seems to be walking away from the scene. Archaeologists have theorized that the cave served over a long period of time as a centre for the performance of hunting and magical rites–a theory supported by the depiction of a number of arrows and traps on or near the animals. Based on carbon-14 dating, as well as the fossil record of the animal species portrayed, the Lascaux paintings have been dated to the late Aurignacian (Perigordian) period (c. 15,000-13,000 BC). The cave, in perfect condition when first discovered, was opened to the public in 1948. Its floor level was quickly lowered to accommodate a walkway, destroying information of probable scientific value in the process–and the ensuing pedestrian traffic (as many as 100,000 annual visitors), as well as the use of artificial lighting, caused the once-vivid colours to fade and algae and bacteria to grow over some of the paintings. Thus, in 1963 the cave was again closed. In 1983 a partial replica, “Lascaux II,” was opened nearby for public viewing; by the mid-1990s it registered some 300,000 visitors annually.

The inhabitants of what was to become the Perigord region have left so much evidence of their existence and way of life that the valley of the Vézère has become a sanctuary to their memory and a prestigious prehistoric site. Industrious and prosperous tribes of Gauls who lived in the hills and already knew the secrets of iron joined together and became known as the Petrocores. Under the Romans, they built in the valley the important town of Vésone which became a city in the first century AD and part of the Roman Empire. After the invasions, the antique Civitas Petrocorium became the province of Périgord and played an important part in the struggle for the independence of Aquitaine, before coming under the French monarchy. The French king Henri IV was the last Count of Périgord.

During the Hundred Years War, the region marked the boundary of French and English possessions and was thus the scene of incessant combat, resulting in the many castles which were the bastions of rival factions. Feudal struggles were fierce and the spirit of liberty was evident from early on. The towns were dministered by consuls and walls were built to protect the cities.
After the destruction and massacres of the Wars of Religion (1562 - 1598), these military defences were used for the last time during the troubles known as “La Fronde” (1649 - 1652).

During the French Revolution, the Périgord region changed its name in 1790 and became known as the
Dordogne, with the capital changing successively from Périgueux to Bergerac then Sarlat before finally becoming Périgueux again.

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