Bara-Bahau Cave, Prehistoric cave entrance in Vézère Valley, France.
Bara-Bahau is a limestone cave entrance in the Vézère Valley that extends about 100 meters deep with multiple natural chambers. The walls display carved animal engravings that were scratched directly into the stone by prehistoric people.
Speleologists Maud and Raoul Casteret discovered the cave in 1951 and found sixteen large animal engravings on its walls. This find confirmed that the area had been used by people thousands of years before modern times.
The name Bara-Bahau comes from the Occitan language and refers to the sound of rocks falling in the main chamber. Visitors can still hear echoes bounce off the stone walls as they move through the natural spaces today.
The cave requires sturdy footwear because the floor is uneven and sometimes slippery from moisture. Allow enough time to walk through all the chambers at a comfortable pace without rushing.
Claw marks left by cave bears that hibernated here are scratched into the stone, and prehistoric artists incorporated these natural traces into their own animal engravings. This overlap shows how two different time periods meet in the same space.
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