pech merle caves

Pech Merle is a cave which opens onto a hillside at Cabrerets in the Lot département of the Occitania region in France. The site, which was untouched for thousands of years, is an authentic gallery of prehistoric art dating back to 25,000 years BC. This area once had a great river flowing through it, cutting underground channels which were later used for shelter and eventually for mural painting.

Extending for over a kilometer and a half from the entrance to the cave are multiple caverns. The walls of seven of the chambers at Pech Merle have images of woolly mammoth, spotted horses, single color horses, bovids, reindeer, handprints, and some humans. Footprints of children, preserved in what was once clay, have been found more than half a mile underground.