At this now collapsed 35 m (115 ft) deep ancient karst cavity remarkably well preserved Neanderthal fossils were recovered, that might be skeletal remains of deliberate burials.

He had seen water being swallowed through a hole into the ground of his farmyard and chose to enlarge it in the hope of discovering another entry to the nearby cave of Lascaux.

He started to dig on his own without official approval, found numerous stone tools and on 22 September 1957, he excavated a Neanderthal mandible.

[10][11] This interpretation, however, was seriously debated given that repeated occupation of the cave by bears followed natural taphonomic phenomena, that reasonably explain the large number of bones.

[12][7] The first Neanderthal (Regourdou 1), found at the site is a young adult, that initially preserved the mandible, part of the upper limbs and the sternum.