Chauvet Cave

The cave paintings and rock art of Chauvet

The Chauvet Cave is located near the Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in the Ardèche region of southern France. The Cave Paintings of Chauvet date to 30,000 to 32,000 years ago. In the Chauvet Cave hundreds of animal paintings have been found making Chauvet Cave one of the world's most important rock art sites.

Chauvet Cave Through the Mind of a Sculptor

Visit to the Chauvet Cave in 2001 by John Robinson

Unambal Tribe’s beliefs My thoughts turned to the Aborigine Unambal Tribe and their beliefs as recorded by Dr. Andreas Lommel in 1938 in Kimberley, N.W.Australian. The Unambal were a Stone Age people, and lived a life very similar to that of the Chauvet people 35,000 years ago. The Unambal used stone tools, spears, and believed in the Spirit World. Their Medicine Men painted their Wandjina Gods and called upon them for help. The Unambal believed that each person had two souls or shadows. After death one of the shadows went to an Underworld, in which life carried on as it had on Earth.

A connection was possible between a living person on the Earth and the shadows in the Underworld. Contacting the shadows of the Underworld was the function of the Shaman, who was a central figure of importance in the lives of the Aborigines.

Unambal and the Bear Clan

I believe that the Bear Clan must have been very like the Unambal tribe. If you replace “Unambal” with “Bear Clan” in the following text by Doctor Lommel I feel you have a picture of the people who used Chauvet. Doctor Lommel was able to gather his information by living with the Unambal and listening to their stories, which they also enacted in their Corroboree dances.

Shaman at centre of the community

Lommel writes:- “The Medicine Man was at the centre of the community and life among the Unambal aborigines comes to an end if he dies or he loses his skills. He was the collective soul of the hunting group, and his job was to make good all that was not as it should be.

Link to Creation Myth

He was their link with primeval times and the Creation Myth, and without him a complete degeneration of their order and life occurred. Life in the present was only possible through constant contact with primeval times. The mediator between the present and primeval times was the Medicine Man, as he not only lived in the present, but also in him the creative forces that were in operation in primeval times were still alive.

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