Page 417 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - France

Rocamadour’s abbey, clinging to the cliff face

THE DORDOGNE

Covering the old provinces of Périgord, Quercy and
Gascony, the Dordogne is known as “the cradle of
mankind”. The region sheltered some of the first
human settlers in Europe, 40,000 years ago. Among
147 surviving Paleolithic sites most famous are the
Lascaux caves, with vibrant animal paintings dating
back 17,000 years. The rolling terrain, crisscrossed
with rich river valleys and oak forests, was an ideal
home to hunter-gatherers. Julius Caesar conquered
the region around 50 BC, and Vandals and Visigoths
followed some 400 years later, seen off by the
Franks in 507 AD. Viking raiders ousted the Franks
in the 9th century, settling as farmers. Over the
ensuing centuries, the land scape became dotted
with impressive castles and medieval bastides
(defensive towns), a legacy of the Hundred Years’
War, fought and lost by the English, and the inter-
mittent Wars of Religion, in which Catholics fought
Huguenots (French Protestants). In 1844, the
people of this region were immortalized in the
swashbuckling D’Artagnan of Alexander Dumas’s
The Three Musketeers.
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