Gisement de Laugerie-Basse
MonumentHidden Treasure
Beneath the rock shelter of Laugerie-Basse, the Vézère reveals one of the richest Magdalenian deposits in the world: sculpted ivories, harpoons and venus figurines bear witness to a fascinating humanity 15,000 years old.
History
Nestling in the heart of the Vézère valley, in what UNESCO has called the "cradle of prehistoric art", Laugerie-Basse is much more than just an archaeological site: it's a window onto the daily life of Magdalenian man. Protected by an immense overhanging limestone wall, this rock-shelter site offers visitors a gripping encounter with a civilisation that is now extinct but surprisingly sophisticated. What sets Laugerie-Basse apart from the multitude of sites dotted around the Dordogne is the extraordinary density and quality of the artefacts unearthed there since the first excavations in the 19th century. Mammoth ivory statuettes, finely engraved assegais, harpoons with double rows of barbs, thrusters decorated with animals in the round: the artistic and technical panoply unearthed here literally underpinned the definition of the Magdalenian as the apogee of European Palaeolithic art. The visitor experience is both contemplative and intellectually stimulating. Standing under the natural shelter, you become aware of the adaptive genius of these hunter-gatherers who, between 17,000 and 12,000 BC, exploited the resources of the river, the surrounding woodland and the large herds of reindeer migrating across the plain. The sedimentary strata still visible in the walls of the excavation are so many pages in a book that archaeologists have been deciphering for over one hundred and fifty years. The natural setting amplifies the emotion: the creamy limestone cliff plunges almost sheer down to the Vézère, whose clear waters reflect the poplar and walnut trees on the opposite bank. A few hundred metres downstream, the twin site of Laugerie-Haute is a reminder that this whole valley was, for thousands of years, a concentration of human activity unrivalled in Western Europe. Laugerie-Basse is now the property of the Dordogne department, which is responsible for its conservation and access, while respecting this exceptional heritage.
Architecture
Laugerie-Basse is a typical Périgord archaeological site where differential erosion of the limestone creates natural overhangs offering a partially open roof. The cliff, made of Lutetian limestone, has a wall height of around twenty metres, with enough overhang to protect an area of occupation around 70 to 80 metres long and around ten metres deep. Unlike closed decorated caves (such as Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume), there are no decorated walls preserved in situ at Laugerie-Basse: the art is exclusively movable, i.e. made of transportable objects. The archaeological layers, superimposed over a thickness that can exceed three metres in places, constitute in themselves a stratigraphic architecture that archaeologists read as a palimpsest of several millennia of occupation. The current floor of the site still reveals sedimentary and bone remains in place, protected by discreet arrangements designed to limit erosion caused by tourist traffic. The site is accessible from the road running alongside the Vézère river, and a pathway leads beneath the limestone wall, whose ochre and cream tones change with the light depending on the time of day.
Related Figures
Edouard Lartet — géologue et paléontologue pionnier, co-fouilleur du site dès 1863Henry Christy — banquier et ethnologue britannique, mécène des premières fouillesLouis et Elie Massénat — frères collectionneurs périgordins, premiers explorateurs du gisementGabriel de Mortillet — archéologue qui intégra Laugerie-Basse à sa classification du PaléolithiqueDenis Peyrony — préhistorien des Eyzies, fouilleur et catalogueur infatigable de la vallée de la VézèreÉmile Rivière — archéologue ayant contribué aux fouilles de la fin du XIXe siècle
