Chauvet Cave

The Chauvet Cave is located near Le Pont-d'Arc, a natural bridge of limestone in the Ardche valley of southern France. Discovered in 1994, it is considered one of the most significant prehistoric art sites as it contains the earliest known cave paintings and other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life.

The cave and its paintings was first discovered on December 18, 1994 by a trio of speleologists: Eliette Brunel Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and led by Jean-Marie Chauvet for whom it was named. Famous archaeologist Jean Clottes was contacted and immediately went to see for himself the cave paintings reported to be not only of the usual horses and aurocks but of lions and rhinos, animals not normally found in prehistoric cave art.

As well as the paintings and other human evidence they also discovered fossilized remains, prints, and markings from a variety of animals, some of which are now extinct. Sealed by rockfall for millennia, the contents of the cave were incredibly well preserved. To keep them this way, the cave has been kept closed with extremely limited access to only a few qualified researchers.

When Jean Clottes hiked to the cliff overlooking the Ardeche Valley and crawled through the narrow passage into the Chauvet Cave he was skeptical that the report he had received of the spectacular painted cave was for real. Could another cave containing beautiful prehistoric art really have been preserved all this time, only to be discovered in his lifetime? He feared a fake.

There are also a number of human hand prints on the walls, as well as some abstract and geometric forms. The only human images are black charcoal.drawings of the "Venus" figure - legs and genitals of a woman - and the "Sorcerer" - a figure that is half man and half bison. Their location on the same wall suggests a deliberate connection by the artists.

This painting in the Chauvet cave shows a group of four horses. Rather than looking like a herd though, it seems to be a study of horses in different attitudes: from left to right, calm, aggressive, sleeping and grazing. The presence of the many other animals, including rhinos and aurocks in a variety of poses, certainly supports this interpretation. If this is true, what level of sophistication and insight into the nature of the creatures they drew with such care does it reveal about these artists from the past!

Interpretation of the motivation of the Chauvet Cave artists is not easy. Unlike other prehistoric cave paintings which generally show scenes related to the hunting lifestyle of the artists, many predatory animals are included here. Were these artists from an earlier era more concerned with observing all the animals in their environment, particularly the predators that might pose a threat? How could they have had more time on their hands to just paint for pleasure than their later descendants? Or were they, like it has been suggested later cave artists did, producing spiritual images, connecting to the spirits of the creatures they painted, and perhaps portraying shamanistic rituals in the painting of the "sorcerer"?

In any case, whatever their purpose, and even if we never know it, these beautiful paintings stand as truly spectacular works of art. They were preserved for all this time, preserving the legacy of people previously thought to have lived lives too primitive, to have been too busy just hunting and gathering and fighting for survival, and with too little appreciation of beauty or too little skill to produce works of beauty to be such sophisticated artists. One look at these paintings though changes our conception of the very humanness of these people from so long ago. It changes our very understanding of what it means to be human, at least it does for me.

Werner Herzog was granted special permission to film the amazing paintings in the Chauvet Cave for his movie, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams." Due to concerns about damage to the paintings access was very limited and only 3 people were allowed to accompany Herzog. Since I will never get a chance to see the real thing, I'm thrilled to be able to see them in this film! Check out the trailer for the movie.