Les Eyzies-de-Tayac

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac , or Les Eyzies, village (1993 est. pop. 856), Dordogne dept., SW France, on the Vézère River. Situated some 15 mi (24 km) SW of the Lascaux caves (see Paleolithic art ), the village is in an area rich in prehistoric remains. The more than 100 archaeological sites nearby include the Cro-Magnon cave, which gave its name to the human skulls dating from the Paleolithic period 's Aurignacian culture that were found (1868) there; the Combarelles, Grand Roc, and Font-de-Gaum caverns, where Paleolithic paintings and carvings were discovered (1901); Le Moustier cave, which yielded a human skeleton and chipped flints and gave its name to the Mousterian culture associated with Neanderthal man ; and La Madeleine rock shelter, whose tools and carvings defined the characteristics of the Magdalenian culture. Les Eyzies-de-Tayac is home to the National Museum of Prehistory, which contains one of world's the finest collection of early European artifacts.

Cro-Magnon Tall, Upper Paleolithic race of humans, possibly the earliest form of modern Homo sapiens. Cro-Magnon people settled in Europe c.35,000 years ago. They manufactured a variety of sophisticated flint tools, as well as bone, shell, and ivory jewellery and artifacts. Cro-Magnon artists produced cave paintings in France and n Spain. Cro-Magnon remains were first found in 1868 in a rock shelter in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne, France. See also human evolution

Altamira. The site of the first prehistoric rock paintings to be discovered, about 30 km (20 miles) west of Santander, near the village of Santillana del Mar, in northern Spain. The entrance to the cave that contains the paintings was found by a hunter in 1868. Excavations were started in 1879 by a local landowner, Don Marcelino de Sautuola, and the now famous roof paintings were spotted by his infant daughter. The antiquity and authenticity of the paintings were at first denied by most prehistorians, but the doubts were dispelled after the discoveries in 1901 of cave art near Les Eyzies in France by Henri Breuil (1877–1961), the scholar who did more than anyone else to establish the scientific study of cave art. The Altamira cave extends for about 300 m (330 yds) into a limestone massif, but the paintings are in a gallery, often no more than 2 m (6 ft) high, about 30 m (33 yds) from the entrance. Best-preserved among them are those on the roof—polychrome figures of animals, mainly bison, drawn almost life-size with the contours accentuated here and there by engraving. The paintings are naturalistic in style, displaying a remarkable grasp of essential form and an eye for characteristic attitude and movement. They have gained Altamira the nickname of the ‘Sistine Chapel of Cave Art’. The cave also contains rock engravings of animal heads. The polychrome paintings are dated to about c.12,000 bc and are regarded, with those at Lascaux, France, as the outstanding paintings known from the prehistoric era.