Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil is a Lesson in Human Evolution

The fog was just lifting when we arrived

{See my Facebook page tomorrow for lots of pictures}
 

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil is often called the “Capital of Prehistory” and I wouldn’t question it. In and around the village are numerous caves with etchings and paintings from the so-called “Stone Age,” which is the longest period of human-like and early humans. It only stretches from circa (about) 3.4 million years ago to circa 4000 -2000 B.C.E. That’s a mere 99% of the time humans and their ilk have been on the planet. Most of what we think we know of the Stone Age (Paleolithic) era is inferred from visual evidence such as stone and bone tools, skeletal remains, rock carvings, examination of habitats, and painted cave walls. The Stone Age isn’t an entirely accurate term as some gold- and copper-working dates from the late Stone Age.

 

To try to get a grip on things, archaeologists subdivide the Stone Age. Insofar as we can tell at present, during the middle and later Paleolithic periods, homo sapiens evolved and became the dominant fully human inhabitants of the area, though that has been challenged. We continue to think the homo sapiens gave us the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the settled villages, domestication of animals, and farming of the Neolithic periods, but don’t be too sure. Among the many fascinating things on view at the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies is enough surviving bone to challenge the view that homo sapiens are unique. The area in and around Les Eyzies is pocked with so many once-inhabited caves that is was nicknamed “Troglodyte Village.”

 

There’s no such species as a troglodyte, but the story of humankind is often told as if there were. Ape-like australopithecines (and older) beings were assumed to inhabit the caves. They probably did, as did Neanderthals and homo sapiens. The part that stuns most folks today is the evidence that at least one line of Neanderthal needs to be reclassified as homo sapiens. (The jury is still out on the recently discovered hominids known as denisovans.) It’s pretty much a given that homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred. Another mind-blowing discovery at the Prehistory Museum is that many Neanderthals differed from Cro-Magnons (long thought to be the first homo sapiens) only in that they were slightly smaller but more muscular. You can find modeled reconstructions of various humans and human ancestors in the museum, as well as now-extinct giant elk and wooly mammoths.

 

The museum alone makes Les Eyzies a busy place for a village of just 852 residents. It also makes one think, as it is housed in Château Tayac, a castle-like building that was constructed in the 12^th-16^th centuries in and around massive cliffs. Call it an advanced cave dwelling.

 

The village has a few shops but the word quaint comes to mind. It sits in a small valley near the junction of the Vézère and Beune Rivers. Local fully evolved French citizens farm and tend vines in Les Eyzies,  but tourism rules big time. Numerous archaeological sites important to human prehistory are on view and the famed Lascaux cave paintings are nearby. We visited a cave in Cougnac during the same visit.

 

By the way, troglodyte simply means cave dweller. If you visit Spain or Greece, you’ll learn that troglodytes are still among us. After all, why go to all the trouble of building a new structure if there’s a cave nearby that’s warm in the winter and cool in the hot summers. All you need to do is make sure it’s not currently occupied by bears! And, yes, there are bears in the Dordogne.

 

Rob Weir