The human race may have been born in Africa's Olduvai Gorge, but its artistic soul first made a public and preserved appearance in and around the Valley of Prehistory, here in south-central France.
The sharp cliffs and rocky shelves of many gullies and box canyons along the Vezere River that flows through the valley are the sort of terrain described in Jean Auel's series of best-selling "Clan of the Cave Bear" novels.Each opens only on one end. Each has sheer stone walls pierced by scores of black cave openings. So each canyon and gully offered the kind of protection from wild animals, harsh weather and human enemies that any settlement of primitive people would need.
That explains why these caves contain the world's richest lode of wall drawings by prehistoric humans, probably Cro-Magnons.
The surrounding Dordogne region is laced with similar caves, some with evidence of early human use and others with none.
But the largest number cluster around Les Eyzies, where the French government in 1913 set up its first museum of prehistory. Just half a mile east of the small town, a line forms at about 8 a.m. every day beneath a 400-foot-high spur of white and black limestone.
This is the line to see the Grotto of Font de Gaume, the most famous cave still kept open by the French government (the still-more-renowned Lascaux Cave, a few miles northeast, was closed to the public after sweat and breath from visitors coated ancient paintings with a veil of white calcite).
The line forms early because only 340 persons are allowed in daily. The cost is about $5.
Visitors walk the 130 yards of narrow underground passages under the supervision of strict guides who prevent anyone from touching a cave wall. This is a compromise between preservationists who want the cave closed to prevent graffiti like those engraved by 19th-century vandals, and recreationists, who want unlimited access.
Those who arrive early enough to get a ticket will see dozens of 14,000-year-old paintings of buffalo, horses and reindeer, including a striking frieze of two reindeer kissing.
They'll see how clever cave artists used the natural shape of underground rocks to portray the animals in their lives.
But they'll see no signs of human habitation. For where primitive humans painted (using chunks of ferrous oxide or magnesium oxide), they never lived. And where they lived, they almost never painted.
Around Les Eyzies, there are also the Grand Roc cave, with no evidence of early human use but rich geological resources, the St. Cirq cave, with horses, ibex and bison paintings along with a rare human figure, and the Rouffignac cave, with about six miles of underground passages features paintings and carvings of mammoths, rhinoceros, horses and wild goats.
There are also numerous smaller caves and several nearby settlements where medieval aristocrats carved their keeps directly into cliffsides, rather than building castles like most other feudal lords.
But no place around Les Eyzies shows off the soul and spirit of early humans quite as well as the Grotto of Pech-Merle at Cabrerets, near the wine-producing center of Cahors.
About 30 miles southeast from the abundant underground artistry of the Les Eyzies area, Pech-Merle lies alone in a secluded valley.
Unlike other caves with easily visible openings that have been known since the Middle Ages, Pech-Merle wasn't discovered until 1922, when 16-year-old Andre David and his 15-year-old friend Henri Dutertre stumbled into it while exploring odd corners of the David family farm.
Visitation here is also limited, but not as severely as at the damaged Font de Gaume. About 700 persons are permitted to descend into the cave daily at 70 French francs (about $13) per person.
As at the Les Eyzies-area caves, the natural dampness of the underground air caused prehistoric paint to bond with rocks, preserving the paintings perfectly.
Any onlooker can see this was some sort of sacred place.
The series of huge underground galleries contains red bisons, a bear's head carved into the rock, black buffalo, several ibexes and mammoths and even a ceiling drawing of an obviously pregnant woman, perhaps some primitive fertility symbol.
But it's the blue spotted horses and the hand imprints all around them that most visitors will remember longest.
An ancient artist used a snout-shaped rock outcropping to help make one horse, then painted the rest of the animals' outlines.
Hand imprints placed every few feet around the horses make it clear the artist was about the same size and shape as a modern human.
"This was definitely a holy place of some sort," says a guide. "But we know nothing of their religion."
The cave-laced Dordogne region can be reached easily by train or car from Paris, Lyon or Toulouse. Car rental agencies are easy to get to.