Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave And Surrounding Landscape – What Did The Ancient Artists See?

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - The Chauvet Cave is home to the world's oldest cave paintings, dating back 36,000 years.

Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in southeastern France. Credits: mockingbird.creighton.edu

Were the stunning images of cave lions, horses, and bulls in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in southeastern France somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 years old, as some researchers have suggested, or had they been painted millennia earlier?

The Chauvet Cave in France contains plenty of remarkable paintings that are between 20,000 and 30,000 thousand years old and of great historical importance.

The Chauvet Cave lies by the entrance to the Gorges of the Ardèche,  Their state of preservation and aesthetic qualities earned them a spot on the World Heritage List in 2014, 20 years after their discovery.

The location of the cavern—surrounded by a remarkable landscape, next to the Pont d'Arc natural archway—raises the question of whether the people who executed these artworks looked and walked out upon the same landscape as today.

Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in southeastern France. Credits: mockingbird.creighton.edu

Did they see the same natural archway?

Scientists from the CNRS, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle now know the answer.

By studying the landform of the area and making novel use of applied mathematics to date sand transported by the Ardèche River, they determined that the Pont d'Arc was formed about 124,000 years ago.

The Cirque d’Estre shapes the natural setting of the Chauvet Cave and the Pont d’Arc. The upper photograph shows the Combe d’Arc, an old meander later cutoff by the Ardèche River. Credit: Jean-Jacques Delannoy and Stéphane Jaillet

This study shows that these past communities were therefore familiar with the same landmarks we know today: the gorge entrance, a natural archway, and a ledge leading directly to the cave entrance, which was then wide open.

A few years ago, researchers conducted an analysis of carbon-bearing pigments scraped from the walls of the cave supports the earlier date, putting the oldest possible age of the paintings at 36,600 years old.

Further, carbon-dating charcoal bits unearthed from the cave floor suggest the cave was occupied—or at the very least visited—by humans as much as 37,000 years ago.

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Written by Conny Waters - AncientPages.com Staff Writer