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
The cave paintings and rock art of Chauvet

Chauvet Cave is exceptional – despite being recently discovered in 1994, it contains the world’s oldest rock art ever found. The Chauvet Cave is located near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in the Ardèche region of southern France, its chance discovery by a trio of speleologists revealed not only the fossilized remains of many animals, including some that are now extinct, but one of the most extensive Palaeolithic rock art galleries ever recorded.

On inspecting Chauvet's rock art on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, Dr Jean Clottes realised instantly that the cave was of grave importance. "When you examine a painted line under the magnifying glass, you notice that what appears as a continuous, unbroken line is in fact full of tiny gaps caused by erosion." Not only was the art likely to prove extremely old, it was very extensive, highly varied, and very skillfully executed. But perhaps most importantly, the cave and its contents were more or less perfectly preserved – untouched for many thousands of years. For this reason, whilst the investigation of the cave took place and the age of the rock art was verified, the cave was locked down. Since 1994, more people have been to the top of Everest than into the Chauvet Cave.

Six months later, carbon 14 dating analyses showed that one buffalo and two rhinoceros were approximately 31,000 years old. The datings "have revolutionised hitherto accepted concepts on the appearance of art and its development, and prove that homo sapiens learnt to draw at a very early stage".

Hundreds of animal paintings have been recorded, depicting at least 13 different species, including those which have rarely or never been found in other "Ice age" ice age paintings. Rather than the more usual animals of the hunt that predominate in Paleolithic 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 gallery where there appears to be a Venus figure - the legs and genitals of a woman – attracting the attention of the figure now known as the ‘Sorcerer’ - the lower body of a man with the upper body of a bison. The scene would suggest a ritual, shamanic or magical aspect to these paintings.

The gorges of the Ardèche region are home to numerous caves. Is Chauvet unique, or are there more marvels to discover?

The Bradshaw Foundation visited the Chauvet Cave in 1999 and 2001 followed by a further field trip made in 2005. Reports of these visits can be found in this section.