Pech Merle

Pech Merle is a French hillside cave at Cabrerets, in the Lot département of the Occitania region, about 32 kilometres (19.88 miles) east of Cahors, by road. It is one of the few prehistoric cave painting sites in France that remains open to the general public, albeit with an entry fee. Encompassing two levels and spanning over 2 km (1.24 mi) in area—of which only 1,200 m (3,900 ft) are open to the public—are caverns, wells and sloping tunnels, the walls of which are painted with dramatic, prehistoric murals dating from the Gravettian culture (some 25,000 years BC). But some of the paintings and engravings may date from the later Magdalenian era (16,000 years BC). The cave itself was created over 2 MYA by an underground river, cutting channels which were later used by humans for shelter and, eventually, for hand-painting the walls. The galleries are, today, mostly dry. Passageways and caverns accessible to visitors measure roughly 10m (33') across, on average; the clearance beneath the vault is between 5m-10m (16–32') high. The cave art located in the deeper areas of the cave was discovered in 1922 by Marthe David (aged 13), together with her brother, André David (16), and Henri Dutetre (15). The three had previously been exploring the cave for a two-year period. Like other children of the area, these three had been encouraged and assisted in their exploration by Father Amedee Lemozi, the curate of Cabrerets and an amateur archaeologist, who had discovered other cave paintings in the region. The walls of seven of the chambers at Pech Merle have recent-looking, lifelike images of mammoths, spotted and single-coloured equids, bovids, reindeer, human stenciled handprints, and some human figures, as well. Footprints of children, preserved in what was once clay, have been found more than 800 m (2,600...