Pech Merle

Pech Merle is a French hillside cave at Cabrerets, in the Lot département of the Occitania region, about 32 kilometres east of Cahors, by road. It is one of the few prehistoric cave painting sites in France that remains open to the general public, albeit with an entry fee. Encompassing two levels and spanning over 2 km in area—of which only 1,200 m are open to the public—are caverns, wells and sloping tunnels, the walls of which are painted with dramatic, prehistoric murals dating from the Gravettian culture. But some of the paintings and engravings may date from the later Magdalenian era.

The cave itself was created over 2 MYA by an underground river, cutting channels which were later used by humans for shelter and, eventually, for hand-painting the walls. The galleries are, today, mostly dry. Passageways and caverns accessible to visitors measure roughly 10m across, on average; the clearance beneath the vault is between 5m-10m high.