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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Roucadour Cave, located in Thémines (Lot, Occitanie), is a prehistoric cave discovered at the end of the 19th century. It has been owned by the State since 1992 and has been listed as a Historic Monument since 1964. Its access is forbidden to the public. The cave is known for its exceptional parietal art, with 495 representations (139 animals, 213 geometric signs) and a stagnant human occupation of the Upper Paleolithic to the Gallo-Roman era. It gave its name to the Roucadourian, a cultural faction of transition between Mesolithic and Neolithic (circa 4200 BC), although this attribution remains debated.

The cave, explored in 1890 by Édouard-Alfred Martel, reveals a main gallery of 280 m long, with rooms like the painting room, partially obstructed by a collapse at the end of the Upper Paleolithic. The excavations of the 1950s-1960s, carried out by speleologists such as Pierre Taurisson and Jean-Paul Coussy, revealed paintings, engravings, and objects (ceramics, swords of Bronze age). Father André Glory, in charge of his study, died tragically in 1966 before being able to complete his research.

The site covers nearly 10,000 years: first a hunting site in Paleolithic (Aurignacian/Gravetian), then a permanent habitat in the Mesolithic and Neolithic, with traces of fireplaces and a burial discovered in 2002 by Michel Lorblanchet. The doline in front of the cave, searched between 1951 and 1957, delivered artifacts from the final Bronze (like an Erbenheim sword) and hunting statuettes. The site illustrates contacts between mesolithic hunter-gatherers and neolithic farmers on the southern edge of the Central Massif.

The cave is distinguished by its 44 slit circles, characteristic geometric pattern, and its red and black negative hands. Animal representations include 43 horses, 22 felines, 16 megakeros, and 9 mammoths. After its takeover by the State in 1992, an international team led by Michel Lorblanchet conducted a comprehensive study (2002), confirming its importance in understanding the cultural and artistic transitions of Prehistory.

Geologically, the cave is an ancient gourd (karstic cavity) formed at the end of the Tertiary, with a doline in the entrance. His secondary gallery, discovered in 1962, revealed the majority of betting works. The partial collapse preserved these works by isolating the painting room. Today, Roucadour remains a key site for the study of prehistoric art and neolithization dynamics in Western Europe.

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