In close proximity to a small cave and a modest shelter, the great La Ferrassie shelter was exploited at the turn of the century and excavated in a more modern way between 1968 and 1973. Its imposing stratigraphy (40,000 / 25,000 B.P.) shows the succession of the last Mousterians superseded by the first modern men (to the Aurignacian period) followed by the Perigordians. Beyond this cultural transition, La Ferrassie is famous for its eight Neanderthal tombs (children, adults, elderly people) and for a beautiful example of blocks engraved with schematic marks discovered in the Aurignacian layers and constituting the first well-dated signs of prehistoric art.
