VEZERE VALLEY - Mapcard

Reference : FR064

POSTCARD AVAILABLE FOR TRADE
Size : 10 x 15 cm

"La Vallée de la Vézère (Dordogne)"

Location of DORDOGNE department and VEZERE Valley in France :

In about fifty kilometers, the valley of Vézère, located in the department La Dordogne in sourth-west of France, collects together someone of the richest and the most famous sites of the European Prehistory, giving evidence of 400 000 years of human occupation.

Indeed, the region contains 147 prehistoric sites going back to the Palaeolithic, not less than 25 decorated caves. Hundreds of thousand lithiques, osseous and artistic vestiges were discovered in that area.

It presents an exceptional interest in ethnological, anthropological and aesthetic point of view with its rock paintings, particulary those of the cave of Lascaux, accidentally discovered by teenagers in 1940, which marked a date in the history of the knowledge of the prehistoric art. This cave was nicknamed the "Chapel Sixtine de la Préhistoire". Its walls delivered hundred of surprising animal figures by the precision of the observation, the richness of the colors and the intensity of the depiction.

The village of Les Eyzies is another top-place of the valley.

UNESCO w.h.s. :
Prehistoric sites and decorated caves
of the Vézère Valley

Date of inscription : 1979

The Vézère valley contains 147 prehistoric sites dating from the Palaeolithic and 25 decorated caves. It is particularly interesting from an ethnological and anthropological, as well as an aesthetic point of view because of its cave paintings, especially those of the Lascaux Cave, whose discovery in 1940 was of great importance for the history of prehistoric art. The hunting scenes show some 100 animal figures, which are remarkable for their detail, rich colours and lifelike quality.