Chauvet in brief
Chauvet Cave, officially the Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, lies in a limestone cliff above the Ardèche river in southern France, close to the natural rock arch called the Pont d’Arc. It was discovered in 1994 and it holds hundreds of animal paintings and engravings, as well as many marks and hand prints. It was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2014.
Discovery
On 18 December 1994 three cave explorers, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire, felt a draught coming from a small opening in the cliff. They cleared it and descended into a huge series of chambers. The first images they saw were red ochre marks and paintings of animals. The cave is named after Chauvet, who was the leader of the team.
The entrance had been closed for tens of thousands of years by rock falls, which sealed the cave and protected the floor. Footprints of a child and the tracks of cave bears are still there, together with skulls of the bears, one of which sits on a block of rock as if placed there on purpose.
The art
- Animals. Lions, woolly rhinoceroses, mammoths, bears, horses, bison, aurochs and many others. The proportion of dangerous animals, lions, bears and rhinos, is much higher than in later caves such as Lascaux, where horses and deer dominate.
- Technique. Artists used charcoal and red ochre, shaded and scraped the walls to give depth, and used the shape of the rock to give the animals a three-dimensional look. A panel of horses, a group of lions apparently stalking bison, and a mural of rhinoceroses fighting are among the best-known scenes.
- Hand prints and dots. Red dots, and hand prints made by an adult who may have been the same person in several places.
How old is it?
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from the paintings and of torch marks gives two periods of use, about 37,000 to 33,500 years ago and about 31,000 to 28,000 years ago, mostly in the Aurignacian period, when the first modern humans lived in Europe. That makes the paintings about twice as old as Lascaux’s, and shows that sophisticated art already existed soon after modern humans arrived in Europe. Some archaeologists question whether all the paintings are that old, and argue that the dates may be too early, but most accept them.
The replica and the film
Because the cave is fragile it is closed to everyone but scientists and conservators. The Caverne du Pont d’Arc, a full-size replica, opened nearby in 2015. In 2010 the director Werner Herzog was allowed to film inside, and his documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams gave many people a first look at the paintings.
Why it matters
Chauvet shows that early modern humans could create works of art with skill, imagination and a sense of drama, almost as soon as they arrived in Europe, so that artistic ability did not slowly develop over time.
Visiting
The cave is closed to the public. The Caverne du Pont d’Arc replica in Vallon-Pont-d’Arc is open to visitors.
Sources
- Chauvet, J.-M., Deschamps, É. B. and Hillaire, C. (1996). Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave. Harry N. Abrams.
- Quiles, A. and others (2016). A high-precision chronological model for the decorated Upper Paleolithic cave of Chauvet-Pont d’Arc, Ardèche, France. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113: 4670 to 4675.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Decorated Cave of Pont d’Arc, known as Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc.