Baume d'Oullins
The Baume d'Oullins (also called Baume d'Oulen) is a prehistoric cave discovered by Paul Raymond in 1896. It is located on the left bank of the Ardèche in Labastide-de-Virac in the Ardèche department and Le Garn in the Gard department . The cave is located in the national nature reserve of the Ardèche Gorges (Réserve naturelle nationale des gorges de l'Ardèche).
The cave, which opens to the north through an approximately 50.0 m wide and 15.0 m high portal, consists of an entrance hall and an inner room containing engravings and cave paintings. The Baume d'Oullins was used from the Middle Paleolithic ( Moustérien , Gravettien , Solutréen and Magdalenien ) to the Neolithic . In addition to the Grotte de la Salpêtrière, it has the most important stratigraphy of the Upper Paleolithic of the Rhone Valley .
Stage 10 of Jean Combiers' excavation, which follows the Upper Solutréen, revealed an industry that the researcher named "Rhodanian". In the absence of a comparable level that confirms this horizon, the term remains open for the moment. Recent excavations by Frédéric Bazile have made it possible to date the various levels, in particular the Upper Solutréen, to 21,000 to 20,000 BC. Chr.
The walls of the cave contain engravings and pictures from the Paleolithic, which, among other things, depict stylized mammoths .
The cave, which has been a listed building since 1911, has been closed to the public since 1981.
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Coordinates: 44 ° 20 ′ 17.2 ″ N , 4 ° 27 ′ 27.7 ″ E