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.