The sun often shines in Périgord,

but it is the shadows and silence

of the region's decorated caves

that are responsible for the fame

of the banks of the Vézère and

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, "the world

capital of prehistory". It is in the seclusion of the

great sanctuaries, where the walls are covered

with timeless works of art that visitors perceive

the paradox of how long ago their Homo sapiens

ancestors lived, and yet how remarkably close they

still seem. This valuable visitors' guide reviews past

theories formulated after the first discoveries and

summarises the results of recent scientific research.

These developments are now presented in the

new national museum of prehistory at Les Eyzies.

Themes such as landscapes, ways of life, dwellings

and material culture, burials, art and the first

stirrings of symbolic expression, and their evolution

during the Palaeolithic era, all enable us to

conjure up the life of the long-dead Neanderthal

and Cro-Magnon populations.