A monument of the Earth's and Nature's history, Mont-Perdu and its massif are also monuments of human history. Man has contributed to the forming of these landscapes and his presence can be seen everywhere thanks both to material marks as well as memory data.

Mont-Perdu is above all the pivot of a geographical space, the culminating point of the Tres Serols, the navel and the center of a world, the place where the sky and the Earth unite, as according to the traditional myths of humanity.

Natural elements very early favored man's presence in these areas, first temporarily, then more and more frequently, until human communities settled down and became sedentary. These communities got organized so as to draw their subsistance from the resources provided by valleys and slopes, their high pastures and forests, their rock barriers and passes, and their water and mines. Ever since the Superior Paleolithic age (between 40,000 and 10,000 years before Christ), the massif and its surroundings have been both the familiar horizon and the living space of the men who have marked out their passage through the historical ages (the Añisclo and Escuain caves, the Gavarnie stone circles, the burial places, the Tella dolmens). Constituted human communities (the "Vals" in Aragon and the "Vats" in Bigorre bring together numerous human groups within the same political structure) entered history during the Middle ages with written archives.

In these living spaces and places of expression, of efforts, of wars and peace, man has left his marks, opened up his paths and lanes, built his bridges, set up his cabins, his malladas and his coueylas, his accomodation places symetrically placed at the bottom of the passes (espitaus / hospitales in Gavarnie and Bujaruelo, Aragnouet and Parzan, Héas and Pineta). With his flocks, he has influenced the botanical aspect of pastures and forestry sites, and even that of intermediary spaces in which he made meadows for his sything and temporary fields for his plowing, germs and panares. A secret geography only known by ancient users of the high lands and by written memory, was born from the needs of human groups and their auxiliaries, cows and ewes. The conquest of pasture land thus drew, in an invisible manner, land partitions, limits in which a highly differentiated and technical exploitation was practiced according to the seasons. Though not directly perceptible to the non-informed eye or mind, these past realities -which have not lost their topicality since they are still present in some of the cattle breeders' lives today - are an essential element of the Mont-Perdu landscapes. Gaulis's vast pastures, with their particular ancient way of use symbolized by the junta of August 1st, the mountain of Ossoue, which is situated on the Gavarnie slopes, and which, during the summer, belongs to the Broto Valley whose cows are, still today, sent there over the Bernatoire pass, constitute in this way the most remarkable testimony of the mode of exploitation of these high places.

This taking hold of space, whether peaceful or not, has also given one of its main characteristics to the massif which is a limit, a physical and mental partition, and an area of passage and contact. For centuries, the high valleys of Mont-Perdu have lived on tight links and necessary exchanges, united by a general community of interests that they shared little or not at all with the plain. The crossing of passes situated at an altitude of 2,300 m to 2,800 m (7,546 ft to 9,183 ft) was a risky enterprise that stopped no man nor beast of burden -among other events of the sort, it is still remembered that, in 1791, an avalanche engulfed a convoy of 120 mules with their muleteers in the Boucharo or Gavarnie pass-. The need for such ties found its expression in a political and legal realization (patzarias, lies and passeries) that remained independent of the central powers for a long time. Intended to guarantee peace within the bordering valleys, its spirit has not been forgotten yet.

Many of the characteristics that we have conjured up could well be claimed by other Pyrenean communities, or more generally by other mountain communities. Yet, it would be hard to find elsewhere, besides such a conjunction of aesthetic qualities and symbolical meanings, a concentration of the infinite richness of man's and nature's history and life.

Whether directly perceptible or requesting the initiation necessary for any knowledge, the particulars of this massif and its surroundings turn it into a Mecca of the mountain heritage of humanity.