Gisement de la Combe
MonumentHidden Treasure
Gisement de la Combe, located in Valojoulx (Dordogne), is a historic monument. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Location
- Valojoulx, Dordogne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 45.0177, 1.1563
- Mérimée Reference
- PA00083048
On the edge of the Périgord Noir, the Combe site reveals exceptionally rich Palaeolithic remains, silent witnesses to tens of thousands of years of human occupation in the Vézère valley.
History
Nestling in the beating heart of the Périgord Noir, the Combe à Valojoulx site is part of one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric remains in Europe. Listed as a Historic Monument since 1935, this archaeological site is part of the mythical territory that borders the Vézère valley, dubbed the "Valley of Man" by UNESCO, where humankind has left some of its oldest and most eloquent footprints. The La Combe site has all the typical features of Périgord Palaeolithic open-air and rock shelter sites: complex stratigraphy, an accumulation of superimposed cultural layers spanning dozens of millennia, and faunal and lithic remains that bear witness to bygone lifestyles. The carved flint tools found on this type of deposit - scrapers, burins, blades and scrapers - are a living catalogue of the ingenuity of prehistoric man in dealing with his environment. A visit to this site is an invitation to reflect on the long term. Far removed from museographic reconstructions, the La Combe site offers a direct confrontation with the rock, soil and strata that have preserved, millennia after millennia, the traces of a humanity in the making. It's an experience of rare simplicity, set in a limestone landscape where chestnut and holm oak trees form an unchanging backdrop. Valojoulx, a small village in the Dordogne just a few kilometres from the Lascaux and Les Eyzies sites, and its neighbours form a prehistoric archipelago without parallel in Western Europe. The La Combe site is an essential link in a chain of narratives that stretches from Homo heidelbergensis to the earliest expressions of cave art, reminding us that for hundreds of thousands of years, this area was one of the privileged climatic refuges of ancient humanity.
Architecture
The Combe site belongs to the category of open-air archaeological sites associated with limestone reliefs characteristic of the Périgord karst. Unlike decorated caves, this type of combe site - a narrow, incised valley - has an open morphology where archaeological deposits accumulate in horizontal or slightly sloping sedimentary levels, protected by a rock overhang or by the natural configuration of the terrain. The materials making up the site are entirely natural: Bajocian and Coniacian limestone typical of the Périgord Noir, ochre and brown decalcification clays, aeolian silts from glacial periods, and cryoclastic scree formed during freeze-thaw cycles. These sediments, several metres thick, form the site's geological and archaeological archives. The movable remains - lithic tools made of local flint, faunal bones (reindeer, horse, bison, woolly rhinoceros), fire coals - are integrated into these successive layers. The topography of the site reflects the harmonious integration between human occupation and the natural environment: the limestone walls, carved with crevices and small natural chambers, may have served as temporary shelters or lithic work areas, while the open space of the combe was the main area of activity for prehistoric groups. There are no built structures associated with the site, the 'architecture' of the site being entirely that of nature shaped by time and inhabited by man.
Related Figures
Édouard Lartet — paléontologue et préhistorien qui, avec Henry Christy, ouvrit la voie aux fouilles scientifiques en Périgord dès 1863Gabriel de Mortillet — préhistorien français qui établit la première classification des industries paléolithiques, cadre de référence pour l'étude des gisements périgordinsDenis Peyrony — instituteur et préhistorien périgourdin ayant fouillé et inventorié des dizaines de gisements de la région au début du XXe siècleHenri Breuil — abbé et préhistorien de renommée mondiale, figure tutélaire de la recherche préhistorique française ayant contribué à la protection des sites du PérigordMarcellin Boule — directeur de l'Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, promoteur de la protection institutionnelle des sites préhistoriques français dans l'entre-deux-guerres
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Gisement de la Combe located?
Gisement de la Combe is located in Valojoulx, Dordogne department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France.
Is Gisement de la Combe open to visitors?
Gisement de la Combe is currently closed to visitors.