Ceret -Tautavel

Up and off, after breakfast today, to see Tautavel Man. We drove up to Perpignan and then up the Agly River valley. Over a very rocky hilly area and into a lovely valley bordered by steep cliffs. The valley is totally covered in grapevines, in the usual patchwork of oddly shaped fields with the rows aligned in different directions. There were also apricot (we learned later) orchards. Blossoms are starting to appear.
We arrived just in time to find that the museum was closed until 2pm. We ate a picnic and then drove back into the village of Tautavel and found a café for a coffee.

Steep, rocky cliffs and a fertile valley

2 large, well behaved shepherds "guarded" the café.

From the café table we could see the bell tower with the cliffs behind. Built
in the early 1800s.

Above the village of Tautavel, a ruined "chateau" or fortress and a "toure" or tower.

Tautavel is a sleepy little village, snuggled in the valley, below the cliffs and it must have been quite a shock to the inhabitants and the economy when the huge archeological discovery was made.

The Marie is quite lovely with ceramic and painted plaster decoration.

In 1971 the skull of Tautavel Man was found in "Caune de l'Arago" a cave above Tautavel
that had previously been used to shelter sheep. It predates Cro-Magnan and Neanderthal Man
and was therefor the oldest evidence of European man.

When the museum opened we went in. Our tickets included an auditory guide and we walked through the rooms with explanation in English playing in our ear. There are hundreds of bits of animals, tools and humans that have been taken out of the cave, on display. It amazes me that archeologists can identify not only what creature those bones came from but when it died. We watched an employee demonstrating for a group of school children how to fashion a piece of rock into a cutting tool. He then cut a piece of his hair off with it - convincing.
Hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been excavated from the cave and research continues with discoveries being made on a continuous basis that further clarify the lives of prehistoric man and the animals that lived in that time.

The museum has lots of dioramas, films, actual footage of the dig and a life size model of the cave itself.

Statue of Tautavel Man outside the museum.

Vines, the village of Tautavel and the ruins on the cliffs above