“As we moved deeper into the cave, bear skulls and bones littered the ground; our lights revealed bear hollows, where they slept, and enormous paw prints. Then I was shocked to see a series of painted panels flanking both sides of a deep recess. In a scene unique in prehistoric art, two rhinos seemed to be fighting. Four horse heads were drawn in exquisite detail above them. All around, rhinos, bison, aurochs, lions, deer and reindeer appeared, as if born of the cave itself. On the wall of another chamber were two life-sized lions facing three other lions and a beautiful rhino. In another frieze, a pride of lions were depicted hunting bison. In the center of another chamber, a bear skull had been carefully placed on a stone fallen from the roof.”

Ancient Grand Masters. Jean Clottes

About the art

The Chauvet Cave is one of the most famous prehistoric rock art sites in the world. Located in the Ardeche region of southern France along the bank of the river Ardeche near the Pont-d'Arc, this cave was only discovered as recently as 1994, happened upon by a small team of cavers led by Jean-Marie Chauvet. Chauvet Cave's importance is based on two factors: firstly, the aesthetic quality of these Palaeolithic cave paintings, and secondly, their great age. With one exception, all of the cave art paintings have been dated between 30,000 & 33,000 years ago. In 1998, the eminent Frenchprehistorian Dr. Jean Clottes headed the first research team in Chauvet Cave, under great security.

The fact that these cave paintings were executed so skilfully yet so deep within prehistory has forced us to abandon the prevailing view that 'early art was naive art'. Not only is the Ice Age art of the Chauvet Cave extremely old, it is also very extensive and highly varied. And one other factor intrigued prehistorians around the world eagerly awaiting news from the research team; the Chauvet Cave and its Paleolithic paintings were more or less perfectly preserved.

Hundreds of cave paintings of animals have been recorded, depicting at least 13 different species, including those which have rarely or never been found in other Ice age paintings. Rather than the more usual animals of the hunt that predominate in Palaeolithic cave art, such as horses, cattle and reindeer, the walls of the Chauvet Cave are covered with predatory animals - lions, panthers, bears, owls, rhinos and hyenas.As one would expect, there are no human figures, except at the very end of the lowest and farthest gallery in the Chauvet cave system, where there appears to be a female figurine - the legs and genitals of a woman - attracting the attention of the one other human figure - the lower body of a man with the upper body of a bison, now referred to as 'The Sorcerer'.

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Sources:

https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/chauvet_cave_paintings.php https://web.archive.org/web/20101003031246/http://www.time.com/time/europe/wonder/chauvet.html 

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