La Madeleine Shelter is located on the northern bank of the Vézère River, opposite the village of Tursac. Is is is a unique and fascinating site in the sense that it has three different levels of occupancy. The prehistoric rock shelter is at river level, the troglodyte medieval village half-way up the cliff and the medieval castle on the top of the cliff.
La Madeleine is the only site that has been inhabited for a period of 17.000 years without interruption! This unique characteristic along with the importance and style of the artifacts recovered from the various excavations led the archaeologists to name a phase of the Upper-Paleolithic (the Magdalenian) after it.
Most of the artifacts found in La Madeleine are exhibited in the National Prehistory Museum in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil.