Grotte de Cussac

Le Buisson-de-Cadouin

Left intact and sealed for 30,000 years, this cave in the Bessède forest — just a few kilometres from the abbey of Cadouin, already featured in the app — was only discovered on 16 September 2000, by the caver Marc Delluc, who noticed a strong draught blowing through a rockfall blocking the gallery. True to caving tradition, he refused to have the cave named after him and chose to call it after the nearby locality, Cussac. To protect it, he at once laid out a narrow path so as not to damage the ancient traces, and immediately alerted the Centre national de la Préhistoire; he remained involved in research on the site until his death in December 2017. Nicknamed 'the Lascaux of engraving', it holds more than 150 Gravettian wall engravings, some as monumental as the bulls of Lascaux, along with several human skeletons carefully arranged in former bear dens — though no body was ever truly buried. Unlike Lascaux, Cussac will remain permanently closed to the public: the exceptional atmospheric conditions that allowed its perfect preservation for thirty millennia are too fragile to withstand even a single visit.

Getting there : Closed to the public, strict scientific preservation

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound