Chauvet Cave Paintings: Earliest Prehistoric Murals: Discovery, Layout

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave - among the
world's oldest sites of prehistoric cave painting,
along with the El Castillo Cave
Paintings (39,000 BCE), the Sulawesi
Cave Art (37,900 BCE) and the abstract
signs found at Altamira (c.34,000 BCE) - was discovered quite by chance
in the Ardeche gorge in 1994, by three speleologists - Jean-Marie Chauvet,
Eliette Brunel-Deschamps and Christian Hillaire - while they were surveying
another cave nearby. Inside the Chauvet grotto, they found a 400-metre
long network of galleries and rooms, covered in rock art and petroglyphs,
whose floor was littered with a variety of paleontological remains, including
the skulls of bears and two wolves. Some of these bones had been arranged
in special position by the previous human inhabitants. Amazingly, Chauvet's
entire labyrinth of prehistoric art
had been left undisturbed since a landslide sealed off the entrance about
25,000 years ago.
Carbon Dating:
How Old are the Cave Paintings at Chauvet?
Chauvet is one of the few prehistoric painted
caves to be found preserved and intact, right down to the footprints of
animals and humans. As a result it ranks alongside Lascaux
(c.17,000 BCE), Altamira (c.15,000 BCE), Pech-Merle
(c.25,000 BCE) and Cosquer (c.25,000
BCE) as one of the most significant sites of Stone Age painting. Moreover,
its earliest rock art (charcoal drawings of
two rhinos and one bison) have been dated to between 30,340 and 32,410
BP (before present). This means that these images were created roughly
29-30,000 BCE, making them the third oldest figurative cave paintings
in the world, after the Sulawesi animal pictures in Indonesia and the
more primitive Fumane cave paintings
(c.35,000 BCE) in Italy. Although Chauvet does not boast the type of polychrome
painting visible at Lascaux or
Altamira, this is more than offset by the sheer originality, diversity
and preserved quality of its art. According to the French Ministry of
Culture in Paris, the antiquity of Chauvet's cave
art has radically altered previous theories concerning the artistic
development of Paleolithic Man, and demonstrate that Homo sapiens
learnt to draw at a very early stage. (To see how the age of cave murals
at Chauvet compares with that of Lascaux, see: Prehistoric
Art Timeline. See also the Nawarla
Gabarnmang charcoal drawing (26,000 BCE) in Arnhem Land, Northern
Territory, Australia.)
What is the
Significance of Chauvet Cave and its Art?
The discovery of the Chauvet cave, along
with its galleries of prehistoric drawings, paintings and petroglyphs,
was significant for two main reasons. First, both the content of the imagery
and the artistic techniques used to create them, came as a major surprise.
The types of animals represented was unusual, because previously most
of the species depicted in Stone
Age art were game animals that were hunted for food. However, at Chauvet,
it is the more dangerous animals - not generally hunted for food - that
account for a majority of the images. Furthermore, Chauvet's Stone Age
painters employed more sophisticated techniques of drawing,
shading, perspective
and composition in their murals than was previously expected, at least
for the period in question. As a result, Chauvet contains numerous dynamic
and powerful compositions consisting of multiple images skillfully executed
and arranged to fit in with the contours of the cave chambers. There is
also some evidence to suggest that a significant quantity of the charcoal
drawings were painted by a single, master artist.
Until the discovery of Chauvet in 1994,
most paleoanthropologists believed that the major centres of parietal
art were confined to the Perigord-Quercy region, the Pyrenees, and
the Cantabrian coast. The discovery of the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave in
the Ardeche region, reminds us that original caves of great cultural importance
might still await discovery in areas other than the major centres.
Note: For a comparison with African painting
from the same era, please see the animal pictures on the Apollo
11 Cave Stones (c.25,500 BCE).
Chauvet also sheds an interesting light
on the artistic inventiveness of Aurignacian
art (c.40,000-26,000 BCE). Ever since the 1930s, researchers have
known that between 35,000 and 30,000 years ago the Aurignacians living
in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany carved beautiful ivory statuettes
- such as the peculiar Lion
Man of Hohlenstein Stadel (c.38,000 BCE) - with both naturalistic
and stylized characteristics. (For more details, see: Ivory
Carvings of the Swabian Jura.) The unusually sophisticated cave art
at Chauvet, a site contemporary with the Swabian ivories, demonstrates
that the Aurignacians were equally talented at painting and engraving
than they were at prehistoric sculpture. At
the same time it raises an intriguing question: given the identical subject
matter (mammoths, felines, bears, bison, horses and rhinoceroses) between
Chauvet's painting and the Swabian ivory
carving, was there a direct relationship between southern Germany
and the French Ardeche region, (say) via the Rhine and Rhone valleys?
Or is this artistic congruence between the two areas mere coincidence.
Whatever the answer, let us hope that further examples of Aurignacian
artistry emerge before too long.
Archeology
and Human Habitation
The gorges in Ardeche contain numerous
caverns, many of which possess petroglyphs and other artifacts of archeological
and geological significance. But Chauvet Cave is unusually big and was
inhabited by prehistoric humans during two distinct periods: the Aurignacian
(c.40,000-26,000 BCE) and the Gravettian (26,000-20,000 BCE): that is,
firstly about 31,000-29,000 BCE, and later about 26,000 BCE, after which
the cave was sealed by a landslide. Most of the artwork dates to the earlier
period of inhabitation (c. 30,000 BCE).
Chauvet contains a total of over 300 paintings
and engravings. These were grouped in specific ways. In the most accessible
part of the cave, most images are red, with a few black or engraved ones.
In the deeper part, the animals are mostly black, with far fewer rock
engravings and red figures. Also, there are groupings of specific
animals: for example, the Horse Panel and the Panel of Lions and Rhinoceroses.
What makes Chauvet such an important example of Franco-Cantabrian
cave art, is the sophistication of its paintings. No other Aurignacian
cave contains compositions with the same degree of realism, naturalism
and complexity.
Animal Figures
The most noticeable animals in the cave
(accounting for some 60 percent of all such images) are lions, mammoths,
and rhinoceroses, all of whom were rarely hunted, thus unlike most other
caves, Chauvet is not a pictorial showcase of daily Stone Age life. Other
rare animals include a panther, a spotted leopard and an owl. In addition,
the cave features the usual horses, bison, aurochs, ibex, reindeer, red
deer and musk-oxen.
Abstract Art
As well as figurative pictures, Chauvet
contains an abundance of abstract art
in the form of geometric symbols (though less than sites in the Cantabrian
region of Spain), a number of indecipherable marks, as well as a quantity
of red-ochre prehistoric hand stencils
and handprints.
Painterly Skills
and Techniques
According to researchers, the workmanship
of Chauvet's prehistoric artists is excellent. Shading, perspective and
relief are skillfully used, the body proportions of the animals are natural,
and species are clearly defined with numerous details of anatomy shown:
for example, mammoths are drawn with an arched belly, bison are presented
in frontal perspective with a bushy mane, horses too have thick manes,
while the rhinoceroses have very distinctive ears. Chauvet's Stone Age
painters also used engraving techniques to emphasize the lines, volume
and relief of the animal figures, and mixed floor clay with charcoal to
create different hues. See: Prehistoric
Colour palette.
The Layout of the
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave runs for about
400 metres in a north-south direction. Its entrance leads into the Brunel
Chamber.
The Brunel
Chamber
This has five areas or panels of parietal
art. Near the original prehistoric entrance is the "Vestibule
of Red Bears", in which there are three red drawings of cave
bears - recognizable by the steep incline of their foreheads - on a panel
in a small recess. The central bear has been drawn with a confident hand
using the natural contour of the cave wall. This bear is complete, but
the one to its left consists of just a bear head, while to the right the
third bear is part-complete. The painter used a technique known as stump-drawing
- the use of fingers or a piece of hide to shade the inside of the bodies
and add volume.
Also near the entrance in a small recessed
niche, is the Dotted Animal Panel marked by a group of red dots
applied with the palm of a hand. The dots may depict a mammoth. The Brunel
Chamber also contains the Panel of the Sacred Heart with its mysterious
sign of the cross, the only known example in Paleolithic culture.
Another feature is the so-called Wall
of Dominos, home to one black painting of a feline in profile. Close
by, there are a few red dots and the rear of an animal (possibly an ibex).
The Brunel Chamber also contains the Alcove of Yellow Horses, fronted
by a hanging rock decorated with dots of red ochre. The facing wall is
marked with numerous small figures.
The Chamber
of the Bear Hollows
This long chamber which leads into the
heart of the cave complex was kept deliberately bare and has no drawings
or paintings, except for a single Rhinoceros head at the very end.
The Cactus
Gallery
At the end of the Chamber of the Bear Hollows,
to the east, stands the Cactus Gallery, whose walls are marked by layers
of solidified sedimentary rock. A striking red bear, similar to those
in the Vestibule of Red Bears in the Brunel Chamber, is on one of the
walls, and a number of altered paintings appear elsewhere in the gallery.
The Gallery
of Hands
The Gallery of Hands contains the Panel
of the Panther - a somewhat unusual name given that its principal
animal has a spotted coat more reminiscent of a Hyena, and a shape more
like that of a bear. There is also a large bear, an ibex, a small vertical
bear, and an acephalous ibex. The figures are all painted in red.
In addition, there is the Panel of Red Signs, containing numerous
mysterious markings, and the Frieze of Red Rhinoceroses. Underneath,
several other animals are also painted in red, including a mammoth, felines
and yet more rhinos. On the wall nearby, a number of hand prints can be
seen, plus one hand stencil. The latter, together with the partial outline
of a black mammoth, is located on the Panel of Hand Stencils.
A low passage - known as the Candle
Gallery - with no paintings but some charcoal and torch marks, connects
The Gallery of Hands with the Hillaire Chamber. From now on the Stone
Age art becomes more monumental.
The Hillaire
Chamber
This chamber contains a large number of
individual animal pictures and several major animal groups.
The Panel of the Engraved Horse
depicts a horse walking to the left. Created with the same finger-tracing
method of painting as the nearby owl image, the Horse is a partial representation,
with a full mane and a hairy chest, but with legs tapering into abstract
lines. On a separate surface there is a rather strange painting of an
owl, whose head is seen from the front while its body is seen from the
back. The bird was engraved on the soft outer layer of the cave wall after
the surface had been scraped clean.
On the north wall of the Hillaire Chamber,
which leads into the smaller Megaceros Gallery, there is a panoramic
display of painting, which consists of several independent panels. The
entire mural is about 7 metres in length and is considered by art
critics to be one of the most important galleries in the cave.
Panel of
the Fighting Rhinos and Horses
This panel extends for several metres. Before being painted the wall was
carefully scraped, erasing several initial drawings in the process. Some
20 images were then depicted on the panel, starting with a dramatic pair
of rhinoceroses confronting each other face to face. These two charcoal
drawings have been dated to about 30,000 BCE. After this, the heads of
four horses were added, along with other animals. Slightly different hues
were obtained by mixing the charcoal with floor. Other techniques of drawing,
shading and perspective were also employed.
Panel of the
Horses
This houses three horses, whose heads are
emphasized by shading. These equine images are connected by lines to a
large lion. To the right, a bison is seen in profile, facing right. The
double lines of the back, the hindquarters and the feet were probably
intended to create the illusion of movement, or the perspective of two
animals standing side by side.
Three other panels appear by the north
wall of the Hillaire Chamber: the Panel of the Cervids (prehistoric
deer), featuring a number of oxen, bison, horses, and deer; the Panel
of the Rhinoceros, which depicts a single complete rhinoceros underneath
the dorsal outline of another; and the Panel of the Megaceros (an
extinct type of giant moose), which features the profile of a rhinoceros.
The Chamber
of the Skull
Off to the west is the Chamber of the Skull,
which is noted for its hanging rock embellished with black drawings and
engravings of reindeer and other creatures. The roof of the cavern is
marked by numerous folds and recesses many of which contain charcoal drawings
and engravings.
The Gallery
of Crosshatches
This gallery is situated in the extreme
north-west corner of the cave complex. It is famous for its human footprint
(left foot), similar to that of a male person about 4.5 feet tall and
around 9 years old. The footprint is the first of a trail of prints extending
some 160-feet in length.
Connecting the Hillaire Chamber with the
north-east inner recesses of the cave, is the Megaceros Gallery. Nearly
all of this passageway was left undecorated.
The End Chamber
This is the deepest part of the Chauvet
cave complex, and occupies the extreme north-east corner. It boasts several
areas of artistic interest.
The first is the Panel of Feline profiles,
consisting of two life-size charcoal outlines of a pair of lions, side
by side. The male lion appears in the background; the female in the foreground.
Given the relatively large scale of the images, the artist must have had
enormous faith in his drawing ability.
The Panel of
Bison
On a pillar facing the entrance of the
End Chamber is a set of images depicting several black bison, whose outlines
are enhanced with both shadings and engravings. Dated to about 29,000
BCE, the panel also includes an engraving of a partial mammoth. This engraving
was made before the black drawings. For some reason, pictures of bison
were only painted in the deepest parts of the cave.
The large west wall of the chamber is adorned
with a series of important panels arranged around a niche. As elsewhere,
the wall surface was scraped clean before the artist began. The niche,
known as the Niche of the Horse, is painted with a single image
of a horse, whose tail is drawn into a recess in the rock. The effect
of this, is that the animal appears to be emerging from out of the rock,
as if by magic.
Panel of
Rhinoceroses
This composition - above and to the left
of the niche - is set against a backdrop of large feline figures. All
in all, it is a most unusual example of parietal art. Not only is it unusual
to see so many rhinos represented - they were a comparatively rare species
at the time - but the way they are grouped and laid out is also very unusual.
Panel of
Felines
This group of animals - set above and to
the right of the niche - are also shown in perspective, and the prehistoric
artist has adeptly used the natural contours of the cave wall to separate
the different elements of the picture. The painting depicts a hunt. To
the left, there are four bison heads, and two rhinos; in the centre and
right there are seven bison, pursued by a group of sixteen lions, most
of them represented by their heads alone.
The Hanging Rock
of the Sorcerer
At the extreme end of the End Chamber a
rock formation hangs down from the ceiling to a point about 3-feet off
the ground. This rock formation is adorned with a mass of charcoal drawings
and engravings: one horse, two mammoths, four lions, one musk ox, plus
a hybrid figure - half man and half bison - known as the Sorcerer. Next
to it is the front view of a woman's pelvis joined to long tapering legs.
Her pubic triangle and genitalia are clearly visible. The figure of the
Sorcerer wraps around and faces the pubic triangle. This powerful fertility
image, not unlike the venus figurines
- such as the Venus of Hohle Fels
(c.38-33,000 BCE), the Venus of
Dolni Vestonice (26,000 - 24,000 BCE), or the The Venus
of Willendorf (25,000 BCE) - is yet another link between the art of
the Ardeche and that of the Swabian Jura.
The Sacristy
Latterly, researchers have uncovered a
new chamber, named the Sacristy. Accessible via a small corridor in the
rear left side of the End Chamber, it features a crayon drawing of a small
mammoth, whose tusks are emphasized by engraving. The drawing is as yet
undated.
The Purpose of
Chauvet
In general, although most archeologists
recognize the importance of cave painting to Paleolithic
art and culture, they are still unsure as to the specific purpose
of the caves themselves. One popular theory - based on the subject matter
of the paintings, and the fact that Chauvet, like most caves, was not
used as a place of regular habitation - is that it functioned as a centre
of ritual or magical ceremony. That is to say, the images were intended
essentially for the spirits - the primitive beings or deities worshipped
by Prehistoric Man - not for other men. Of course some or all of the images
might have been revealed to certain individuals, but they were really
meant for the spirits. It was their existence that mattered, not their
public display.
What we can say, is that while Chauvet
doesn't contain the earliest art of
prehistory, it does house the earliest cave murals
and exemplifies the rising cultural level of Aurignacian man during the
last period of the Stone Age.