Grotte d'Arcy sur Cure

The caves of Arcy-sur-Cure, in the Yonne, between Auxerre and Vézelay, are a group of cavities carved by the Cure into a limestone massif. Sources count eleven to fourteen caves and shelters. Occupied by humans for tens of thousands of years, they are one of the great prehistoric sites of Burgundy.

Excavations began in the mid-19th century; in 1890 Abbé Parat identified a major Palaeolithic sequence in the Trilobite cave. They resumed from 1946 under André Leroi-Gourhan, who notably found Magdalenian engravings in the Horse cave.

The Grande Grotte, the part open to the public, is visited with a guide, through galleries, large chambers and underground lakes where formations sculpted by water take on sometimes fantastic shapes. It also contains prehistoric paintings, mainly of mammoths, as well as negative hands and engravings, part of which can be seen.

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