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Pech Merle cave is in the south of France, department Lot, 280 m high on
the eastern slope of the hill of the same name. Pech Merle was discovered
in 1922 by two teenagers, H. David and A. Duterte. It is the main element
of a system, consisting of the neighbouring caves. The average width of
its galleries is 10 m and the height of the ceilings is often from 5 to 10 m.
It lies in two levels but the paintings are seen only in the first one; total
length of the painted walls is 300 m. The paintings include painted and
graphic depictions of animals and different signs. Besides, there are
anthropomorphic figures too, some of them are rather realistic. On the
whole there are about 700 depictions on the cave walls. But the traces of
prehistoric peoples are not only on the walls of the cave: imprints of
children's feet, fragments of charcoal, the remains of a deer shoulder-
blade and three silicic tools: a burin, a lamp and a shaped stone. All these
finds may be dated to the Upper Palaeolithic. A small number of finds
and other traces, left by a man on the cave floor testifies to the that it was
not intended for a long inhabitation and was visited rather seldom, only in
connection with some ritual actions.
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