Les Eyzies & Musée National de Préhistoire

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil in the Vézère Valley of the Dordogne, Nouvelle Aquitaine, holds the title of World Capital of Prehistory—a designation earned by the extraordinary concentration of Paleolithic sites within a few kilometres of the village, including Font-de-Gaume, Les Combarelles, Cap Blanc, and Cro-Magnon, where the first anatomically modern human remains in Europe were identified in 1868. The Musée National de Préhistoire, built into the cliff face below the medieval Château des Eyzies, is the anchor institution for understanding the entire Vézère Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site. The museum holds one of the world's most comprehensive collections of Paleolithic artifacts: flint tools, bone needles, ivory carvings, venus figurines, and engraved antlers spanning 400,000 years of human prehistory in the Périgord. The building, expanded and modernized in 2004, is arranged chronologically from the oldest Lower Paleolithic exhibits through the Mousterian (Neanderthal-associated) period to the spectacular flowering of Magdalenian art and technology. Scale reproductions and anatomical models supplement the artifacts, and the museum's explanatory panels are among the clearest in France on the subject of early human cognition. The terrace above the museum provides views along the Vézère Valley and direct sight of the cliff overhangs (abris sous roche) where our ancestors sheltered. The village of Les Eyzies itself has several restaurants, canoe rental companies for river trips down the Vézère, and a bicycle hire shop for exploring the valley's prehistoric sites under their own steam.