Prehistoric Rock Art Trails

Rouffignac cave

Google Maps:
45.008658, 0.987791

Type of site:
Cave

Place of location: Grotte de Rouffinac
Village/Town: ROUFFIGNAC-ST-CERNIN
Municipality: Rouffignac-Saint-Cernin-de-Reilhac (Dordogne)
Region: Nouvelle Aquitaine
State: France
Telephone: (+33)5 53 05 41 71
Website: http://www.grottederouffignac.fr/index.php/es/
E-mail: grottederouffignac@wanadoo.fr

Natural Environment:

The Rouffignac cave features eight kilometres of galleries in the heart of the Périgord Noir region, in the Vézère watershed. The local landscape is characterised by steep-sided valleys that lie on the edge of Cretaceous limestone massifs, locally topped by Tertiary alluvium. The vegetation alternates between mixed woodlands (oak, chestnut, hornbeam and pine) and farmland devoted to livestock and mixed farming.

Archaeological evidences in the site:

Since the mid-19th century, the mid-Vézère valley has revealed numerous Palaeolithic archaeological sites and, since the early 20th century, several dozen decorated caves. The Rouffignac cave is part of this exceptional regional heritage, with 250 Palaeolithic figurations scattered across 3 km of galleries.

The entrance porch reveals the remains of repeated Mesolithic occupation between 9,000 and 7,000 BC. The site was then used for sepulchral purposes during the Metal Age.

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Opening Times:

Every day from April to October

Opening times:

April to June and September & October: 10am – 11.30am and 2pm – 5pm.

July & August: 9am – 11.30am and 2pm – 6pm.

Booking and access:

Nearby cultural destinations:

The archaeological sites and architectural heritage of the Vézère valley, 15 to 25 km away.

Nearby natural destinations:

The Vézère and Dordogne valleys, 15 to 40 km from the site.

Accommodations (Tourism Website):
https://www.manoirdescedres.com/en
Restaurants (Tourism Website):
https://www.puits-fleuri-etretat.fr/

Age of the artistic representations:

The omnipresence of the mammoth (depicted 170 times), the repeated presence of the woolly rhinoceros, the recurrent organisation of the images into friezes with or without face-to-face contact, the exclusive use of manganese dioxide as a pigment and the diversity of engravings made using various tools, but also with the use of fingers, are the most remarkable features of the Rouffignac rock art. In the absence of radiometric dating, the stylistic and thematic characteristics of this art lead to an attribution to the recent Middle Magdalenian (16,000 to 17,000 cal BP).

General description of the destination:

Of the 8 km of known galleries at Rouffignac, around one kilometre has been developed for tourism, providing access to the most important parietal complexes. The size of the cave combined with a concern for its preservation led, in the 1950s, to the installation of a railway line and an electric train, on which the guided tour takes place. The public is welcomed under the vast entrance porch, with no external buildings.

History of the site:

The cave, whose entrance is still wide open, has been known about for a considerable time and has been visited on numerous occasions. Its recent history dates back to the 16th century, when a description of the site was published in 1575 by François de Belle-Forest in his Cosmographie universelle. Mapped as early as the middle of the 18th century, the cavern was for a long time a place of exploration for local and distant scholars. However, its archaeological interest was only recognised on 26 June 1956 by Romain Robert and Louis-René Nougier, who identified Palaeolithic parietal representations. After a lively but brief controversy over their authenticity, these works were studied in depth, first by their inventors and then by Claude Barrière.

The cave was listed as a Historic Monument on 20 August 1957, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. It has been open to the public since 1959.

Museographic resources description:

Didactic information panels about the cave in the vestibule.