Lascaux Cave Paintings

The caves at Lascaux and their amazing artworks were discovered in 1940 by some teenagers. To their surprise, the cave paintings they discovered there are prehistoric! Since that time scientists have been amazed by what is contained there - a most astonishing view of the shadowy, powerful animal world of the Old Stone Age. The paintings cover the walls of several caverns, known today by such names as the Great Hall of the Bulls, the Chamber of Felines, the Shaft of the Dead Man, and the Painted Gallery.

On the walls are found depictions of bison, aurochs (an extinct type of wild ox), horses, deer, and felines, all animals known to have existed in Paleolithic times, as well as one single man. The one image of a man is of a dead man together with a bison and what appears to be a rhinoceros. It seems that the man has lost a fight with the bison, and is lying on the ground with a broken spear beside him.

The cave paintings at Lascaux are the product of prehistoric human beings who were able to capture the essence of the animals that inhabited their world. They have obvious artistic merit, with the use of color, the contours of the cave walls included in the scenes to add three dimensional realism, and the remarkable compositions that portray vividly the experience of these large animals in motion. Beyond that, though, they are the relics of a culture long gone, one that we never imagined we could know intimately. Such amazing artworks bring these beings, barely human, into our own life experience in a way that evokes a deep emotional and spiritual response, at least in me!

While some of the animals appear at first glance distorted, it has been recognized that horses in their winter coats take on the short-legged proportions of those found here.

Many of the images show an understanding of perspective. In one painting a bison overlaps another, and the three dimensional effect is heightened by the location of the painting in a place where the wall curves outward on either side. There is also a "unicorn," actually a bull drawn in profile so that the two horns appear almost as one, like the horn of the mythical unicorn.

Interpretation of the pictures has varied, especially since there are so many paintings. Some appear no more than the fun of adolescent boys putting their handprints on the wall, perhaps in an effort to make themselves part of the hunt for the animals depicted there. Many have suggested a religious purpose, possibly a form of shamanism (especially since the dead man has a bird-like head and has a stick with a bird head on it beside him), or some kind of animism in which the spirits of the animals killed in the hunt were given a resting place through the drawings. Or, our ancestors may have drawn pictures of animals hoping for a successful hunt.

Whatever their purpose though, the magnificence of the artwork is undeniable and a wonderful display of human creativity from such primitive times.

• The Cave of Lascaux

  Official French government website on Lascaux

• Grotte de Lascaux

  Information on the Lascaux caves.

• The Cave Paintings of the Lascaux Cave

  Bradshaw Foundation site on Lascaux

• Lascaux

  New World Encyclopedia article