Abri de Cro-Magnon

Les Eyzies

In March 1868, workmen quarrying stone for a road at Les Eyzies cut into the base of a rock shelter. The prehistorian Édouard Lartet was called at once and sent his son Louis to make the first records. In about a fortnight of excavation, Louis Lartet recovered two skulls, the bones of five people (four adults, including a woman, and an infant of a few days), tools, ornaments and engraved reindeer bones. The bodies lay near the back of the shelter, in a cavity, and the bones were partly covered with ochre. Nearly 300 pierced shells accompanied them, probably an adornment; one of the shells was dated to about 27,700 years before present. One of the dead, ‘Cro-Magnon 1’, was a man of about forty who had lost all his teeth. That the ochre and the adornment had a ritual meaning is the most common interpretation, but it is a hypothesis. The bones are kept in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, in Paris: the shelter is empty today.

French Ministry of Culture, Mérimée database — Abri de Cro-Magnon ↗

Getting there: The shelter is tucked between houses in the village of Les Eyzies, without a sign, but access is free; it can also be seen during the visit to the neighbouring museum space (according to Hominidés.com). It is empty and cleaned: no tombs remain to be seen. Listed as a historic monument: take nothing away.

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

Ambient sound