Les Combarelles, Prehistoric art cave in Les Eyzies, France
Les Combarelles is a cave in Les Eyzies, in southwestern France, whose passages contain over 600 animal figures engraved into the rock during the Old Stone Age. The passages are narrow and winding, the walls are pale limestone, and the engravings run along several hundred meters of rock.
The cave was discovered in 1901 by French researchers, who immediately recognized it as one of the most important paleolithic sites in Europe. It is part of the Vézère Valleys UNESCO World Heritage area, which groups together many prehistoric sites of the region.
The engravings show mainly animals that people of that time observed daily: horses, reindeer, mammoths, and bears. Walking through the narrow passages, visitors notice how the artists used the natural bumps of the rock walls to give volume and movement to their figures.
Visits take place in very small groups of no more than six people, since the passages are narrow and the engravings are highly sensitive to large crowds. Booking ahead is strongly advised, as spots fill quickly each day, especially during summer.
Among the engravings, one scene shows a reindeer lowering its head to drink, one of the rare depictions of an animal in action in paleolithic art. Also notable is that some figures were drawn on top of others, showing that the cave was visited over many generations.
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