After several twists and turns, I reach a cul-de-sac. As I shine my iPhone flashlight on the walls, out of the darkness emerge drawings in charcoal and red ocher of woolly rhinos, mammoths and other mammals that began to die out during the Pleistocene era, about 10, years ago. It feels, and even smells, like a journey into a deep hole in the earth. The rock walls are stone-colored mortar molded over metal scaffolding; the stalactites were fashioned from plastic and paint in a Paris atelier.
Some of the wall paintings are the work of my guide, Alain Dalis, and the team of fellow artists at his studio, Arc et Os, in Montignac, north of. Dalis pauses before a panel depicting a pride of lions in profile, sketched with charcoal. Restrictions imposed by the French Ministry of Culture bar all but scientists and other researchers from the fragile environment of the cave itself. Five hundred people—including artists and engineers, architects and special-effects designers—collaborated on the project, using 3-D computer mapping, high-resolution scans and photographs to recreate the textures and colors of the cave.
The simulated cavern is not only a stunning tribute to a place, but also to a moment. It celebrates the cold afternoon in December when three friends and weekend cavers—Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire—followed an air current into an aperture in a limestone cliff, tunneled their way through a narrow passage, using hammers and awls to chip away at the rocks and stalactites that blocked their progress, and descended into a world frozen in time—its main entrance blocked off by a massive rock slide 29, years ago.
Brunel, the first to wedge through the passage, glimpsed surreal crystalline deposits that had built up for millennia, then stopped before a pair of blurry red lines drawn on the wall to her right. The trio moved gingerly across the earthen floor, trying not to tread on the crystallized ashes from an ancient fire pit, gazing in wonder at hundreds of images. We crouched on our heels, gazing at the cave wall, mute with stupefaction.
Spread out over six chambers spanning 1, feet were panels of lionesses in pursuit of great herbivores—including aurochs, the now-extinct ancestors of domestic cattle, and bison; engravings of owls and woolly rhinoceroses; a charcoal portrait of four wild horses captured in individualized profile, and some other images of beasts that had roamed the plains and valleys in huge numbers during the ice age.
With a skill never before seen in cave art, the artists had used the knobs, recesses and other irregularities of the limestone to impart a sense of dynamism and three-dimensionality to their galloping, leaping creatures. Radiocarbon dating conducted on 80 charcoal samples from the paintings determined that the majority of the works dated back 36, years—more than double the age of any comparable cave art yet uncovered.
A second wave of Paleolithic artists, scientists would determine, entered the cave 5, years later and added dozens more paintings to the walls. Researchers were compelled to radically revise their estimates of the period when Homo sapiens first developed symbolic art and began to unleash the power of imagination.
At the height of the Aurignacian period—between 40, and 28, years ago—when Homo sapiens shared the turf with the still-dominant Neanderthals, this artistic impulse may have signaled an evolutionary leap. While Homo sapiens were experimenting with perspective and creating proto-animation on the walls, their cousins, the Neanderthals, shuffling toward extinction, had not moved beyond the production of crude rings and awls.
The Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region of southwestern France was, like Chauvet, discovered by serendipity: In September , four teenage boys and their dog stumbled across it while searching for rumored buried treasure in the forest.
The foot-long subterranean complex contains of the finest examples of prehistoric paintings and engravings ever seen, all dating back around 17, years. A green slime of bacteria, fungi and algae formed on the walls; white-crystal deposits coated the frescoes.
In alarmed officials sealed the cave and limited entry to scientists and other experts. But an irreversible cycle of decay had begun. Spreading fungus lesions—which cannot be removed without causing further damage—now cover many of the paintings. Moisture has washed away pigments and turned the white calcite walls a dull gray. In , a total of individuals—including scientists, specialists working on the simulation and conservators monitoring the cave—were allowed to enter, typically spending two hours in a single visit.
It looks like a big discovery. They say there are hundreds of images, lots of lions and rhinos. It sloped down, and then it turned, and then it sloped up. He stared, enthralled, at the hand-size red dots that covered one wall, a phenomenon he had never observed before.
In , two years after his first visit to Chauvet, Clottes published a seminal work, The Shamans of Prehistory , co-written with the eminent South African archaeologist David Lewis-Williams, that presented new ideas about the origins of cave art. The world of Paleolithic man existed on two planes, the authors hypothesized, a world of sense and touch, and a spirit world that lay beyond human consciousness.
The authenticity of the property can be demonstrated by its pristine condition and state of conservation, having been sealed off for 23, years and carefully treated and access-restricted since its rediscovery. The dating of the finds and drawings has been confirmed by C14 analysis as between 32, and 30, years BP, and the materials, designs, drawing techniques and traces of workmanship date back to this time.
The rock art as well as the archaeological and paleontological vestiges are free of human impact or alterations. The only modification is the installation of completely-reversible, stainless steel bridging elements to allow for access to parts of the cave whilst preventing disturbance of floor traces or finds. Likewise, the buffer zone benefits from the highest level of national protection since early The buffer zone accordingly will not permit future development.
The focus of management is the implementation of a preventive conservation strategy based on constant monitoring and non-intervention.
Several monitoring systems have been installed in the cave which form an integral part of these preventive conservation efforts. It is due to this risk that the cave will not be open to the general public, but also that future visits of experts, researchers and conservators will need to be restricted to the absolute minimum necessary.
Despite the delicateness of paintings and drawings, no conservation activities have been carried out in the cave and it is intended to retain all paintings and drawings in the fragile but pristine condition in which they were discovered. The management authorities have implemented a management plan , based on strategic objectives, activity fields and concrete actions, which are planned with time frames, institutional responsibilities, budget requirements and quality assurance indicators.
The latter will allow for full quality assurance after the cycle of implementation in , following which the management plan will have to be revised for future management processes. After it became clear that the cave would never be accessible to the general public, the idea of a facsimile reconstruction to provide interpretation and presentation facilities emerged.
The Grand Projet Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet ERGC was established, with the aim of creating a facsimile reconstruction of the cave with its paintings and drawings, and a discovery and interpretation area to attract visitors. About us. Special themes. Major programmes. For the Press. Help preserve sites now! Join the , Members. The floor of the cave is littered with archaeological and palaeontological remains, including the skulls and bones of cave bears , which hibernated there, along with the skulls of an ibex and two wolves.
The cave bears also left innumerable scratches on the walls and footprints on the ground. The two major parts of the cave were used in different ways by artists. In the first part, a majority of images are red, with few black or engraved ones. In the second part, the animals are mostly black, with far fewer engravings and red figures. Obvious concentrations of images occur in certain places. The dominant animals throughout the cave are lions , mammoths, and rhinoceroses.
From the archaeological record, it is clear that these animals were rarely hunted; the images are thus not simple depictions of daily life at the time they were made. Along with cave bears which were far larger than grizzly bears , the lions, mammoths, and rhinos account for 63 percent of the identified animals, a huge percentage compared to later periods of cave art.
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