David

Fungi on the trunks of various trees around les Eyzies. I’m currently still walking with the aid of a crutch, so exploring the extensive woodlands in the area wasn’t an option. The trees supporting these fungi were nearish to the river; some of them in the garden of the hotel we were staying in.

Butterflies in les Eyzies. Only the small white was taken during our recent visit: the others date from an earlier visit, exactly twelve years earlier.

A large assortment of flowers which drew my attention enough for me to picture them during our recent visit to France. Most were by roadsides in les Eyzies, either growing wild, planted by the authorities or in gardens. A few in a riverside park in Bordeaux, and one features a flower bed in the Luxemburg Gardens, Paris.

This striped shield bug doesn’t exactly have camouflage which lets it blend in with whatever plants it lands on. There have been a smattering of records of them in England, the furthest north in Solihull.

Incising and sculptures representing women and fertility. The so-called Venus of Laussel (otherwise known as the Venus with the horn) and some of the other larger pieces are in the Museum of the Aquitaine in Bordeaux, the others in the museum at les Eyzies.

A bison, engraved on a piece of reindeer horn, licking its back, perhaps trying to soothe a sore spot where an insect has bitten it. Two other bisons, also on reindeer horn. These were all incorporated into spear-throwers.

Larger carvings, extracted from the walls of local caves, portray a group of horses and a pair of aurochs in low relief.

On the walls and ceilings of some of the caves and rock shelters in the neighbourhood, many, many portrayals of ice animals are still in situ. A herd of horses, in low reliefs getting on for the size of Shetland ponies; a life-sized relief of a salmon, so detailed that it’s possible to tell its sex and the time of year. One cave has hundreds of small incised drawings, which can only be reached by a long trek through narrow passages to deep underground. Another has the only polychrome paintings of ice-age mammals, the originals of which can still be visited.

I don’t remember ever having seen a crazy golf course outside an English seaside town before. Behind a bar in a small village in the middle of France, there was the full set of eighteen holes. The course wasn’t in use, though the equipment didn’t seem to me to be particularly old.

The area was in use: as a chicken run. Several happy-looking hens were wandering round, looking for things to eat. Other houses in the village also had hens wandering round at loose in their gardens.

Strutting round most proudly was this fine feathered fellow, coming right up to the wall directly below where I was leaning out of the bar’s terrace.

A minor road by the river in les Eyzies. A common wall lizard was basking in the sun on the wall, as they do. It saw me, but didn’t immediately shoot off to hide in a crack in the wall. It did start to move, but leisurely. Perhaps it realised I wasn’t much of a threat standing still some distance away, but it was getting in position to sprint off if I came closer.

A marbled shield bug poses by walking slowly over the marbled table top on the balcony of the hotel we were staying in at les Eyzies. There were lots of these insects on plants in the area immediately around the village.

These distinctive shield bugs are indigenous to the far east of Asia, but are now well established in western Europe. They have been recorded in Britain, but, as yet, not quite as often. They have also reached the United States, where they are spreading from the east coast.

The table top is marked by what I’m almost certain are fossils. If so, it is not a true marble. Possibly it’s a polished limestone, and just perhaps from a local rock.

ADDED: it seems that while we were away, there have been press reports that this species is poised to invade Britain. From what we noticed of their propensity for fast breeding during a few days of fairly casual observation in rural France, I’m not surprised.

Autumn is the peak time of year for fungi. The hills of the Périgord are well wooded: even the cliffs where they are not too steep. Dense mixed woodland on a limestone soil probably means a rich mix of interesting fungi, including the black truffles which are prized by gourmets. Even in and immediately around the town there were a surprising variety of species.

The most striking, to me, were these dyeballs. From the name, they were a source of some kind of pigment. There are records of them in Britain, but much more common on the continental mainland. These were growing at the foot of the cliff by the railway station road, and a stone’s throw away from the Cro-magnon shelter.

The most famous prehistoric site in the region is probably the Lascaux cave. It’s in the same river valley as les Eyzies, but almost twenty miles further upstream. It’s also been much degraded by what has come to be called overtourism. Large numbers of visitors have severely damaged the paintings on the walls and roof. Tourists now see a modern copy of the cave. Indeed, overtourism has degraded two copies already, so the current attraction is Lascaux IV.

What makes les Eyzies stand out is the shear number of (mostly smaller scale) sites where evidence was found of ice age occupation: hundreds of caves and rock shelters. Many don’t look particularly spectacular. The Cro-Magnon rock shelter looks more fitting as a place to take cover from a sudden downpour than as accommodation, however temporary. But others contain some of the most spectacular examples of prehistoric art which is still visible in its original location. Visitor numbers are strictly limited, some sites are up a long steep path half way up a cliff face leading to caves where the passages are sometimes low, narrow and twisty.

Some sites also have small museums with some of the artefacts they had produced. In the centre of the village (population 809 in 2019 according to Wikipedia) is the French National Museum of Prehistory. A museum of its standard would almost certainly be located in the capital city of any other western European or north American country.