Ariège Le Mas-d’Azil is a gigantic 150-metre-long gallery through which the river Arize twists and tumbles. Upstream, its entrance is over 50 metres high and 48 metres across. In the last century, the biggest Magdalenian habitation ever discovered was found when building a road through this natural tunnel. The importance and uniqueness of these prehistoric remnants earned Le Mas-d'Azil a place in history: one of the Mesolithic periods was named "Azilian" (9,000 years). Firstly inhabited by animals, the inner galleries of the cave contain many mammoth, bear and rhinoceros bones.

In the 15th millennium before our era, the first Magdalenian cave dwellers arrived. They preferred the darker right bank. Later on, the upper Magdalenians and the Azilians made their home on the sunny left bank. Due to such intense occupation, there is an infinite wealth of discoveries: arrow heads, reindeer antler spear heads, assegai and numerous pebbles from the river painted with geometric patterns characteristic of the Azilians... The cave's treasures include the famous "Fawn with birds" (Faon aux oiseaux) atlatl. An atlatl is a spearthrower designed to accentuate the speed and power of assegais (the spears used in prehistoric times). At one end of the stick there is a sculpture of a reindeer fawn looking at two birds on its rump. There is also a young girl's skull revealing death rites: the skull has no teeth but its two eye sockets are filled by small plates made from reindeer vertebrae.

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