Pech Merle Cave

Pech Merle is a cave that opens onto a hillside in Cabrerets, Lot département, Occitania region, France, about 32 kilometers by road east of Cahors. It is one of only a few prehistoric cave painting sites in France that is still open to the public. Caverns, wells, and sloping tunnels stretch over 2 kilometers over two levels, with only 1,200 m (3,900 ft) open to the public. The walls are painted with dramatic murals dating from the Gravettian culture (some 25,000 years BC). However, some of the paintings and engravings may date from the later Magdalenian period (16,000 years BC).

An underground river created this cave over 2 million years ago, cutting channels that were later used by humans for shelter and, eventually, mural painting. The galleries are mostly dry, with an average width of 10 meters. The height beneath the vault ranges between 5 and 10 meters.

Seven of Pech Merle's chambers have fresh, lifelike images of woolly mammoths, spotted horses, single color horses, bovids, reindeer, handprints, and some humans on the walls. Children's footprints preserved in what was once clay have been discovered more than 800 m (2,600 ft) underground. With great success, the Tracking in Caves project tested experience-based reading of prehistoric footprints by specialized Ju/'hoansi San trackers in 2013. There are ten other caves with Upper Palaeolithic prehistoric art within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius of the site, but none of them are open to the public.

Location: Lot Department, Midi-Pyrénées, France