Villages of Perigord

©BertrandRieger

A Museum that brings Prehistory to Life

Organised by the National Monuments

Center, the lecture-tours of the main

archaeological highlights of the Vézère

Valley, provide visitors with the best

opportunity to gain insight into the

lives of the inhabitants of these major

prehistoric sites. The guides are excel-

lent and the journey memorable.

By registration only: +33 5 53 06 86 00.

Fascinating

Guided Tours

Since its creation at the beginning of the XXth century, the National Prehistory

Museum has become a place of reference for Prehistorians and visitors alike. An

extension, opened in 2004, provides improved, state of the art displays. More than

18,000 items are on show in a well-designed exhibition space of over 16,000 square

feet. The layout valorises for instance, an impressive cast of a woolly rhinoceros

(above)

found in Poland, and at the end of a strange carpet of footprints

(opposite)

the cast of an adolescent boy whose skeleton was discovered in Kenya. Additionally,

there are impressive animal carvings in rock

(below)

A tube of almost

four hundred feet long

branching into

three lateral galleries,

Font-de-Gaume is the

only cave in Europe

still open to the public,

presenting authentic

prehistoric polychrome

paintings: more than

two hundred painted

or engraved images

of bison, mammoths,

humans…