The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 in the south of France, in the Ardèche department, on the steep bank of the canyon of the river of the same name, a tributary of the Rhone, near the town of Pont d'Arc by three speleologists Jean-Marie Chauvet, Elette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire.
All of them already had extensive experience in exploring caves, including those containing traces of prehistoric man. The half-buried entrance to the then unnamed cave was already known to them, but the cave had not yet been explored. When Elette, squeezing through the narrow opening, saw a large cavity going into the distance, she realized that she needed to return to the car for the stairs. It was already evening, they even doubted whether they should postpone further examination, but nevertheless they returned behind the stairs and went down into the wide passage.
The researchers stumbled upon a cave gallery, where a flashlight beam snatched an ocher spot on the wall from the darkness. It turned out to be a “portrait” of a mammoth. No other cave in the south-east of France, rich in “paintings,” can compare with the newly discovered one, named after Chauvet, either in size, or in the preservation and skill of the drawings, and the age of some of them reaches 30-33 thousand years.
Speleologist Jean-Marie Chauvet, after whom the cave got its name.
The discovery of the Chauvet Cave on December 18, 1994 became a sensation, which not only pushed back the appearance of primitive drawings by 5 thousand years ago, but also overturned the concept of the evolution of Paleolithic art that had been established at that time, based, in particular, on the classification of the French scientist Henri Leroy-Gourhan . According to his theory (as well as the opinion of most other experts), the development of art went from primitive forms to more complex ones, and then the earliest drawings from Chauvet should generally belong to the pre-figurative stage (dots, spots, stripes, winding lines, other scribbles) . However, researchers of Chauvet's paintings found themselves face to face with the fact that the oldest images are almost the most perfect in their execution from the Paleolithic ones known to us (Paleolithic is at least: it is not known what Picasso, who admired the Altamiran bulls, would have said if he had had a chance to see the lions and Chauvet bears!). Apparently, art is not very friendly with evolutionary theory: avoiding any stadiality, it somehow inexplicably arises immediately, out of nothing, in highly artistic forms.
Here is what the largest expert in the field of Paleolithic art Z. A. Abramova writes about this: “Paleolithic art arises like a bright flash of flame in the depths of centuries. Having developed unusually quickly from the first timid steps to polychrome frescoes, this art just as abruptly disappeared. It is not finds itself a direct continuation in subsequent eras... It remains a mystery how the Paleolithic masters achieved such high perfection and what were the paths along which echoes of the art of the Ice Age penetrated into Picasso’s brilliant work" (quoted from: Sher Ya. When and how did art arise? ).
(source - Donsmaps.com)
The drawing of black rhinoceroses from Chauvet is considered to be the oldest in the world (32,410 ± 720 years ago; there is information on the Internet about a certain “new” dating, giving Chauvet’s painting from 33 to 38 thousand years old, but without credible references).
At the moment, this is the oldest example of human creativity, the beginning of art, unencumbered by history. Typically, Paleolithic art is dominated by drawings of animals that people hunted - horses, cows, deer, and so on. The walls of Chauvet are covered with images of predators - cave lions, panthers, owls and hyenas. There are drawings depicting rhinoceros, tarpans and a number of other animals of the Ice Age.
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In addition, no other cave contains so many images of a woolly rhinoceros, an animal whose “dimensions” and strength are not inferior to a mammoth. In size and strength, the woolly rhinoceros was almost equal to the mammoth, its weight reached 3 tons, body length - 3.5 m, the size of the front horn - 130 cm. The rhinoceros became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, earlier than the mammoth and the cave bear. Unlike mammoths, rhinoceroses were not herd animals. Probably because this powerful animal, although it was a herbivore, had the same vicious disposition as their modern relatives. This is evidenced by scenes of fierce “rock” fights between rhinoceroses from Chauvet.
The cave is located in the south of France, on the steep bank of the canyon of the Ardège River, a tributary of the Rhone, in a very picturesque place, in the vicinity of the Pont d’Arc (“Arch Bridge”). This natural bridge is formed in the rock by a huge ravine up to 60 meters high.
The cave itself is "mothballed". Entrance to it is open exclusively to a limited circle of scientists. And even those are allowed to enter it only twice a year, in spring and autumn, and work there only for a couple of weeks, a few hours a day. Unlike Altamira and Lascaux, Chauvet has not yet been “cloned,” so ordinary people like you and me can only admire the reproductions, which we will certainly do, but a little later.
“In the fifteen-odd years since its discovery, many more people have been to the summit of Everest than have seen these drawings,” writes Adam Smith in his review of Werner Herzog’s documentary about Chauvet. Haven't tested it, but sounds good.
So, the famous German film director somehow miraculously managed to get permission to film. The film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was shot in 3D and shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, which, presumably, attracted the attention of the general public to Chauvet. It’s not good for us to lag behind the public either.
Researchers agree that the caves containing such a large number of drawings were clearly not intended for housing and did not represent prehistoric art galleries, but were sanctuaries, places for rituals, in particular, the initiation of young men entering adulthood (more on this evidenced, for example, by preserved children's footprints).
In the four “halls” of Chauvet, along with connecting passages with a total length of about 500 meters, more than three hundred perfectly preserved drawings depicting various animals, including large-scale multi-figure compositions, were discovered.
Elette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire - participants in the discovery of the Chauvet Cave.
The paintings also answered the question: did tigers or lions live in prehistoric Europe? It turned out to be the second. Ancient drawings of cave lions always show them without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not as impressive. Often these images show the characteristic tuft on the tail of lions. The coloring of the fur, apparently, was one color.
Paleolithic art mostly features drawings of animals from the “menu” of primitive people - bulls, horses, deer (although this is not entirely accurate: it is known, for example, that for the inhabitants of Lascaux the main “forage” animal was the reindeer, while on It is found in single copies on the walls of the cave). In general, one way or another, commercial ungulates predominate. Chauvet is unique in this sense because of the abundance of images of predators - cave lions and bears, as well as rhinoceroses. It makes sense to dwell on the latter in more detail. Such a number of rhinoceroses as in Chauvet has never been found in any other cave.
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It is noteworthy that the first “artists” to leave their mark on the walls of some Paleolithic caves, including Chauvet, were... bears: in some places the engravings and paintings were applied directly on top of the traces of powerful claws, the so-called griffads.
In the late Pleistocene, at least two species of bears could coexist: brown bears survived safely to this day, and their relatives, cave bears (large and small) died out, unable to adapt to the damp gloom of caves. The big cave bear wasn't just big - it was huge. Its weight reached 800-900 kg, the diameter of the skulls found is about half a meter. A person most likely could not emerge victorious from a fight with such an animal in the depths of a cave, but some zoological experts are inclined to assume that, despite its terrifying size, this animal was slow, non-aggressive and did not pose a real danger.
An image of a cave bear made with red ocher in one of the first halls.
The oldest Russian paleozoologist, Professor N.K. Vereshchagin believes that “among Stone Age hunters, cave bears were a kind of meat cattle that did not require care for grazing and feeding.” The appearance of a cave bear is conveyed in Chauvet more clearly than anywhere else. It seems that it played a special role in the life of primitive communities: the beast was depicted on rocks and pebbles, its figurines were sculpted from clay, its teeth were used as pendants, the skin probably served as a bed, and the skull was preserved for ritual purposes. Thus, in Chauvet a similar skull was discovered resting on a rocky base, which most likely indicates the existence of a bear cult.
The woolly rhinoceros became extinct a little earlier than the mammoth (according to various sources from 15-20 to 10 thousand years ago), and, at least in the drawings of the Magdalenian period (15-10 thousand years BC), it is almost not meets. In Chauvet, we generally see a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without any traces of fur. This may be the Merka rhinoceros, which lived in southern Europe, but is much rarer than its woolly relative. The length of its front horn could be up to 1.30 m. In short, it was a monster.
There are practically no images of people. Only chimera-like figures are found - for example, a man with the head of a bison. No traces of human habitation were found in the Chauvet Cave, but in some places the footprints of the cave's primitive visitors were preserved on the floor. According to researchers, the cave was a place for magical rituals.
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Previously, researchers believed that several stages could be distinguished in the development of primitive painting. At first the drawings were very primitive. The skill came later, with experience. More than one thousand years had to pass for the drawings on the walls of the caves to reach their perfection.
Chauvet's discovery shattered this theory. French archaeologist Jean Clotte, having carefully examined Chauvet, stated that our ancestors probably learned to draw even before moving to Europe. And they arrived here about 35,000 years ago. The most ancient images from the Chauvet cave are very perfect works of painting, in which you can see perspective, chiaroscuro, different angles, etc.
Interestingly, the artists of the Chauvet Cave used methods that were not applicable anywhere else. Before applying the design, the walls were scraped and leveled. Ancient artists first scratched the outlines of the animal and used paint to give them the necessary volume. “The people who painted this were great artists,” confirms French rock art specialist Jean Clotte.
A detailed study of the cave will take several decades. However, it is already clear that its total length is more than 500 m at one level, the ceiling height is from 15 to 30 m. There are four consecutive “halls” and numerous side branches. In the first two rooms, the images are made in red ocher. The third contains engravings and black figures. There are many bones of ancient animals in the cave, and in one of the halls there are traces of the cultural layer. About 300 images were found. The painting is perfectly preserved.
(source - Flickr.com)
There is an assumption that such images with multiple contours layered on top of each other are a kind of primitive animation. When a torch was quickly moved along the drawing in a cave immersed in darkness, the rhinoceros “came to life”, and one can imagine the effect this had on the cave “spectators” - “The Arrival of a Train” by the Lumiere brothers is resting.
There are other considerations in this regard. For example, that in this way a group of animals is depicted in perspective. Nevertheless, the same Herzog in his film adheres to “our” version, and he can be trusted in matters of “moving pictures”.
Chauvet Cave is currently closed to public access because any noticeable change in air humidity could damage the wall paintings. Only a few archaeologists can gain access, for only a few hours and subject to restrictions. The cave has been cut off from the outside world since the Ice Age due to the fall of a rock in front of its entrance.
The drawings of the Chauvet cave amaze with their knowledge of the laws of perspective (overlapping drawings of mammoths) and the ability to put shadows - until now it was believed that this technique was discovered several thousand years later. And an eternity before Seurat had the idea, primitive artists discovered pointillism: the image of one animal, it seems, a bison, consists entirely of red dots.
But the most surprising thing is that, as already mentioned, artists give preference to rhinoceroses, lions, cave bears and mammoths. Typically, the models for rock art were the animals that were hunted. “From the entire bestiary of that era, artists choose the most predatory, most dangerous animals,” says archaeologist Margaret Conkey of the University of Berkeley in California. By depicting animals that were clearly not on the menu of Paleolithic cuisine, but symbolized danger, strength, and power, artists, according to Klott, “understood their essence.”
Archaeologists paid attention to exactly how the images were included in the wall space. In one of the rooms, a cave bear is depicted in red ocher without the lower part of its body, so that it appears, says Klott, “as if it were coming out of the wall.” In the same room, archaeologists also discovered images of two stone goats. The horns of one of them are natural crevices in the wall, which the artist widened.
Image of a horse in a niche (source - Donsmaps.com)
Rock art clearly played a significant role in the spiritual life of prehistoric people. This can be confirmed by two large triangles (symbols of femininity and fertility?) and an image of a creature with human legs, but with the head and body of a bison. Probably, Stone Age people hoped in this way to appropriate at least partially the power of animals. The cave bear, apparently, occupied a special position. 55 bear skulls, one of which lies on a fallen boulder, as if on an altar, suggest the cult of this beast. Which also explains the choice of Chauvet Cave by the artists - dozens of potholes in the floor indicate that this was a hibernation site for giant bears.
Ancient people came again and again to look at the rock paintings. The 10-meter-long “horse panel” shows traces of soot left by torches that were mounted in the wall after it was covered with painting. These marks, according to Conkey, are on top of a layer of mineralized sediments covering the images. If painting is the first step on the path to spirituality, then the ability to appreciate it is undoubtedly the second.
At least 6 books and dozens of scientific articles have been published about the Chauvet Cave, not counting sensational materials in the general press, four large albums of beautiful color illustrations with accompanying text have been published and translated into major European languages. The documentary film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D” will be released in Russian theaters on December 15. The director of the film is German Werner Herzog.
Picture "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" appreciated at the 61st Berlin Film Festival. More than a million people went to see the film. This is the highest-grossing documentary film in 2011.
According to new data, the age of the coal used to paint the pictures on the wall of the Chauvet cave is 36,000 years old, and not 31,000, as previously thought.
Refined radiocarbon dating methods show that the settlement of Central and Western Europe by modern humans (Homo sapiens) began 3 thousand years earlier than thought, and occurred faster. The time of cohabitation between sapiens and Neanderthals in most parts of Europe was reduced from about 10 to 6 thousand years or less. The final disappearance of European Neanderthals may also have occurred several millennia earlier.
The famous British archaeologist Paul Mellars published a review of recent advances in the development of radiocarbon dating, which have led to significant changes in our understanding of the chronology of events that occurred more than 25 thousand years ago.
The accuracy of radiocarbon dating has increased dramatically in recent years due to two factors. Firstly, methods have emerged for high-quality purification of organic substances, primarily collagen isolated from ancient bones, from all foreign impurities. When it comes to very ancient samples, even an insignificant admixture of foreign carbon can lead to serious distortions. For example, if a 40,000-year-old sample contained only 1% modern carbon, this would reduce the “radiocarbon age” by as much as 7,000 years. As it turned out, most ancient archaeological finds contain such impurities, so their age was systematically underestimated.
The second source of errors, which was finally eliminated, is due to the fact that the content of the radioactive isotope 14C in the atmosphere (and, consequently, in organic matter formed in different eras) is not constant. The bones of people and animals that lived during periods of high levels of 14C in the atmosphere initially contained more of this isotope than expected, and therefore their age was again underestimated. In recent years, a number of extremely precise measurements have been made that have made it possible to reconstruct the fluctuations of 14C in the atmosphere over the past 50 millennia. For this purpose, unique marine deposits were used in some areas of the World Ocean, where sediment accumulated very quickly, Greenland ice, cave stalagmites, coral reefs, etc. In all these cases, it was possible for each layer to compare radiocarbon dates with others obtained on the basis ratio of oxygen isotopes 18O/16O or uranium and thorium.
As a result, correction scales and tables were developed that dramatically increased the accuracy of radiocarbon dating of samples older than 25 thousand years. What did the updated dates tell us?
It was previously believed that modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared in southeastern Europe approximately 45,000 years ago. From here they gradually settled in a western and northwestern direction. The peopling of Central and Western Europe continued, according to “uncorrected” radiocarbon dates, for approximately 7 thousand years (43-36 thousand years ago); the average rate of advancement is 300 meters per year. Refined dating shows that settlement occurred faster and began earlier (46-41 thousand years ago; advancement speed up to 400 meters per year). At about the same speed, agricultural culture later spread in Europe (10-6 thousand years ago), also coming from the Middle East. It is curious that both waves of settlement followed two parallel paths: the first along the Mediterranean coast from Israel to Spain, the second along the Danube Valley, from the Balkans to Southern Germany and further to Western France.
In addition, it turned out that the period of cohabitation between modern humans and Neanderthals in most areas of Europe was significantly shorter than thought (not 10,000 years, but only about 6,000), and in some areas, for example in western France, even less - only 1-2 thousand years old. According to updated dating, some of the brightest examples of cave painting turned out to be much older than thought; the beginning of the Aurignac era, marked by the appearance of various complex products made of bone and horn, also moved into the depths of time (41,000 thousand years ago according to new ideas).
Paul Mellars believes that previously published datings of the latest Neanderthal sites (in Spain and Croatia; both sites, according to “unspecified” radiocarbon dating, are 31-28 thousand years old) also need to be revised. In reality, these finds are most likely several thousand years older.
All this shows that the indigenous Neanderthal population of Europe fell to the onslaught of Middle Eastern newcomers much faster than thought. The superiority of the Sapiens - technological or social - was too great, and neither the physical strength of the Neanderthals, nor their endurance, nor their adaptability to the cold climate could save the doomed race.
Chauvet's painting is amazing in many ways. Take, for example, camera angles. It was common for cave artists to depict animals in profile. Of course, here too this is typical for most of the drawings, but there are breakthroughs, as in the above fragment, where the buffalo’s face is shown in three-quarters. In the following picture you can also see a rare image from the front:
Maybe this is an illusion, but a distinct feeling of composition is created - the lions are sniffing in anticipation of prey, but have not yet seen the bison, and it has clearly tensed and frozen, feverishly wondering where to run. True, judging by the dull look, he doesn’t think well.
Remarkable running bison:
(source - Donsmaps.com)
Moreover, the “face” of each horse is purely individual:
(source - istmira.com)
The following panel with horses is probably the most famous and widely circulated of Chauvet’s images:
(source - popular-archaeology.com)
In the recently released science fiction film “Prometheus,” the cave, which promises the discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization that once visited our planet, is copied completely from Chauvet, including this wonderful group, which includes people who are completely inappropriate here.
Still from the film “Prometheus” (dir. R. Scott, 2012)
You and I know that there are no people on the walls of Chauvet. What is not there is not. There are bulls.
(source - Donsmaps.com)
During the Pliocene and especially in the Pleistocene, ancient hunters exerted significant pressure on nature. The idea that the extinction of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave bear, and cave lion is associated with warming and the end of the Ice Age was first questioned by the Ukrainian paleontologist I.G. Pidoplichko, who expressed what seemed at the time a seditious hypothesis that man was to blame for the extinction of the mammoth. Later discoveries confirmed the validity of these assumptions. The development of radiocarbon analysis methods showed that the last mammoths ( Elephas primigenius) lived at the very end of the Ice Age, and in some places lived until the beginning of the Holocene. At the Predmost site of Paleolithic man (Czechoslovakia), the remains of a thousand mammoths were found. There are known massive finds of mammoth bones (more than 2 thousand individuals) at the Volchya Griva site near Novosibirsk, dating back 12 thousand years. The last mammoths in Siberia lived only 8-9 thousand years ago. The destruction of the mammoth as a species is undoubtedly the result of the activities of ancient hunters.
An important character in Chauvet's paintings was the big-horned deer.
The art of Upper Paleolithic animalists serves, along with paleontological and archaeozoological finds, as an important source of information about what animals our ancestors hunted. Until recently, the Late Paleolithic drawings from the caves of Lascaux in France (17 thousand years old) and Altamira in Spain (15 thousand years old) were considered the oldest and most complete, but later the Chauvet caves were discovered, which gives us a new range of images of the mammal fauna of that time. Along with relatively rare drawings of a mammoth (among them an image of a baby mammoth, strikingly reminiscent of the baby mammoth Dima discovered in the permafrost of the Magadan region) or an alpine ibex ( Capra ibex) there are many images of two-horned rhinoceroses, cave bears ( Ursus spelaeus), cave lions ( Panthera spelaea), Tarpanov ( Equus gmelini).
The images of rhinoceroses in Chauvet Cave raise many questions. This is undoubtedly not a woolly rhinoceros - the drawings depict a two-horned rhinoceros with larger horns, without traces of hair, with a pronounced skin fold, characteristic of the living species of the one-horned Indian rhinoceros ( Rhinocerus indicus). Perhaps this is Merck's rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis), who lived in southern Europe until the end of the Late Pleistocene? However, if from the woolly rhinoceros, which was the object of hunting in the Paleolithic and disappeared by the beginning of the Neolithic, quite numerous remains of skin with hair, horny growths on the skull have been preserved (in Lvov there is even the only stuffed animal of this species in the world), then from the Merck rhinoceros we have only bone remains, and the keratin “horns” were not preserved. Thus, the discovery in Chauvet Cave poses the question: what type of rhinoceros was known to its inhabitants? Why are the rhinoceroses from Chauvet Cave depicted in herds? It is very likely that Paleolithic hunters were also to blame for the disappearance of the Merck rhinoceros.
Paleolithic art does not know the concepts of good and evil. Both the peacefully grazing rhinoceros and the lions ambushed are parts of a single nature, from which the artist himself does not separate himself. Of course, you can’t get into the head of a Cro-Magnon man and you can’t talk “for life” when you meet, but I am close and, at least, understandable to the idea that art at the dawn of humanity is not in any way opposed to nature, man is in harmony with the world around him. Every thing, every stone or tree, not to mention animals, is viewed by him as carrying meaning, as if the whole world were a huge living museum. At the same time, there is no reflection yet, and questions of existence are not raised. This is such a pre-cultural, heavenly state. We, of course, will not be able to feel it fully (as well as return to heaven), but suddenly we will be able to at least touch it, communicating through tens of thousands of years with the authors of these amazing creations
We don’t see them vacationing alone. Always hunting, and always with almost a whole pride.
In general, the admiration of primitive man for the huge, strong and fast animals around him, be it a big-horned deer, a bison or a bear, is understandable. It’s even somehow absurd to put yourself next to them. He didn't bet. There is something to learn from us, who fill our virtual “caves” with immeasurable quantities of our own or family photographs. Yes, something, but narcissism was not characteristic of the first people. But the same bear was depicted with the greatest care and trepidation:
The gallery ends with the strangest drawing in Chauvet, definitely of cult purpose. It is located in the farthest corner of the grotto and is made on a rocky ledge, which has (for good reason, presumably) a phallic shape
In literature, this character is usually referred to as a “sorcerer” or taurocephalus. In addition to the bull’s head, we see another, lion-like, woman’s legs and a deliberately enlarged, let’s say, womb, which forms the center of the entire composition. Compared to their colleagues in the Paleolithic workshop, the craftsmen who painted this sanctuary look like pretty avant-garde artists. We know individual images of the so-called. “Venus”, male sorcerers in the form of animals and even scenes hinting at the intercourse of an ungulate with a woman, but in order to mix all of the above so thickly... It is assumed (see, for example, http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/ francech auvet.htm) that the image of the female body was the earliest, and the heads of the lion and bull were painted later. It is interesting that there is no overlap of later drawings with previous ones. Obviously, maintaining the integrity of the composition was part of the artist’s plans.
, and also look again at AndAll over the world, speleologists in deep caves are finding confirmation of the existence of ancient people. Rock paintings have been perfectly preserved for many millennia. There are several types of masterpieces - pictograms, petroglyphs, geoglyphs. Important monuments of human history are regularly included in the World Heritage Register.
Usually on the walls of caves there are common subjects, such as hunting, battle, images of the sun, animals, human hands. People in ancient times attached sacred meaning to paintings; they believed that they were helping themselves in the future.
Images were applied using various methods and materials. Animal blood, ocher, chalk and even bat guano were used for artistic creation. A special type of painting is ashlar painting; they were carved into stone using a special chisel.
Many caves have not been sufficiently studied and are limited in visiting, while others, on the contrary, are open to tourists. However, most of the precious cultural heritage disappears unattended, without finding its researchers.
Below is a short excursion into the world of the most interesting caves with prehistoric rock paintings.
Magura Cave, Bulgaria
It is famous not only for the hospitality of its residents and the indescribable flavor of the resorts, but also for its caves. One of them, with the sonorous name Magura, is located north of Sofia, near the town of Belogradchik. The total length of the cave galleries is more than two kilometers. The cave halls are colossal in size, each of them is about 50 meters wide and 20 meters high. The pearl of the cave is a rock painting made directly on the surface covered with bat guano. The paintings are multi-layered; there are a number of paintings from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods. The drawings of ancient homo sapiens depict figures of dancing villagers, hunters, many strange animals, and constellations. The sun, plants, and tools are also represented. Here begins the story of the festivities of the ancient era and the solar calendar, scientists assure.
Cueva de las Manos Cave, Argentina
The cave with the poetic name Cueva de las Manos (from Spanish - “Cave of Many Hands”) is located in the province of Santa Cruz, exactly one hundred miles from the nearest settlement - the city of Perito Moreno. The rock painting art in the hall, 24 meters long and 10 meters high, dates back to the 13th to 9th millennia BC. This amazing painting on limestone is a voluminous canvas decorated with hand traces. Scientists have built a theory about how the amazingly clear and clear handprints turned out. Prehistoric people took a special composition, then took it into their mouths, and blew it forcefully through a tube onto a hand placed against the wall. In addition, there are stylized images of humans, rheas, guanacos, cats, geometric figures with ornaments, the process of hunting and observations of the sun.
Bhimbetka cliff dwellings, India
Enchanting offers tourists not only the delights of oriental palaces and charming dances. In north central India there are huge rock formations of weathered sandstone with many caves. Ancient people once lived in natural shelters. About 500 dwellings with traces of human habitation remain in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The Indians named the rock dwellings Bhimbetka (after the hero of the Mahabharata epic). The art of the ancients here dates back to the Mesolithic era. Some of the paintings are insignificant, and some of the hundreds of images are very typical and striking. 15 rock masterpieces are available for contemplation by those who wish. Mainly, patterned ornaments and battle scenes are depicted here.
Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil
Both rare animals and venerable scientists find shelter in the Serra da Capivara National Park. And 50 thousand years ago, our distant ancestors found shelter here in caves. Presumably, this is the oldest hominid community in South America. The park is located near the town of San Raimondo Nonato, in the central part of the state of Piaui. Experts have counted more than 300 archaeological sites here. The main surviving images date back to 25-22 millennium BC. The most amazing thing is that extinct bears and other paleofauna are painted on the rocks.
Laas Gaal cave complex, Somaliland
The Republic of Somaliland recently separated from Somalia in Africa. Archaeologists in this area are interested in the Laas Gaal cave complex. Here you can see rock paintings from the 8th-9th and 3rd millennium BC. On the granite walls of majestic natural shelters scenes of life and everyday life of the nomadic people of Africa are depicted: the process of grazing livestock, ceremonies, playing with dogs. The local population does not attach importance to the drawings of their ancestors, and uses the caves, as in the old days, for shelter during the rain. Many of the studies have not been properly studied. In particular, problems arise with the chronological reference of masterpieces of Arab-Ethiopian ancient rock paintings.
Rock art of Tadrart Acacus, Libya
Not far from Somalia, in Libya, there are also rock paintings. They are much earlier, dating back almost to the 12th millennium BC. The last of them were applied after the birth of Christ, in the first century. It is interesting to observe, following the drawings, how the fauna and flora changed in this area of the Sahara. First we see elephants, rhinoceroses and fauna typical of a rather humid climate. Also interesting is the clearly visible change in the lifestyle of the population - from hunting to sedentary cattle breeding, then to nomadism. To get to Tadrart Akakus, you need to cross the desert east of the city of Ghat.
Chauvet Cave, France
In 1994, while walking, by chance, Jean-Marie Chauvet discovered the cave that later became famous. She was named after the speleologist. In the Chauvet cave, in addition to traces of the life activity of ancient people, hundreds of wonderful frescoes were discovered. The most amazing and beautiful of them depict mammoths. In 1995, the cave became a state monument, and in 1997, 24-hour surveillance was introduced here to prevent damage to the magnificent heritage. Today, in order to take a look at the incomparable rock art of the Cro-Magnons, you need to obtain special permission. In addition to mammoths, there is something to admire; here on the walls there are handprints and fingerprints of representatives of the Aurignacian culture (34-32 thousand years BC)
Kakadu National Park, Australia
In fact, the name of the Australian national park has nothing to do with the famous Cockatoo parrots. The Europeans simply mispronounced the name of the Gaagudju tribe. This nation is now extinct, and there is no one to correct the ignorant. The park is home to Aboriginal people who have not changed their way of life since the Stone Age. For thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have been involved in rock painting. Pictures were painted here already 40 thousand years ago. In addition to religious scenes and hunting, there are stylized stories in drawings about useful skills (educational) and magic (entertaining). Among the animals depicted are the extinct marsupial tigers, catfish, and barramundi. All the wonders of the Arnhem Land plateau, Colpignac and the southern hills are located 171 km from the city of Darwin. in the 35th millennium BC, it was the early Paleolithic. They left strange rock paintings in the Altamira cave. Artistic artifacts on the walls of the huge cave date back to both the 18th and 13th millennia. In the last period, polychrome figures, a peculiar combination of engraving and painting, and the acquisition of realistic details became interesting. The famous bison, deer and horses, or rather, their beautiful images on the walls of Altamira, often end up in textbooks for middle school students. The Altamira Cave is located in the Cantabria region.
Lascaux Cave, France
Lascaux is not just a cave, but a whole complex of small and large cave halls located in the south of France. Not far from the caves is the legendary village of Montignac. The paintings on the cave walls were painted 17 thousand years ago. And they still amaze with their amazing forms, akin to modern graffiti art. Scholars especially value the Hall of the Bulls and the Palace Hall of the Cats. It’s easy to guess what prehistoric creators left there. In 1998, the rock masterpieces were almost destroyed by mold caused by an improperly installed air conditioning system. And in 2008, Lascaux was closed to preserve more than 2,000 unique drawings.
Ancient rock paintings (petroglyphs) are found all over the world and have one thing in common: they describe animals, including those that are no longer found on earth today. Many of these drawings were so well preserved that at first glance experts considered them to be fakes. However, after careful examination, the images were found to be genuine. Below is a list of ten well-preserved prehistoric cave paintings.
Chauvet Cave
A cave located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the Ardèche River valley in southern France. Contains the earliest known and best-preserved rock art in the world, dating from the Aurignacian era (36 thousand years ago). The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 by three speleologists - Eliette Brunel, Christian Hillaire and Jean-Marie Chauvet. The paintings in the cave depict various Ice Age animals.
Magura Cave
Magura is a cave located near the village of Rabisha in the Vidin region, Bulgaria. In the cave, bones of a cave bear, a cave hyena and other animals were found. And on its walls you can see drawings from different historical periods. They mainly depict female figures, hunters, animals, plants, the sun and stars.
The find includes about 5,000 paintings made by Aboriginal people on rocks in Kakadu National Park, Australia. Most of the paintings were created about 2000 years ago. Interestingly, they depict not only animals such as white sea bass, catfish, kangaroo, rock couscous and others, but also their bones (skeletons).
Tadrart-Akakus
Tadrart-Akakus is a mountain range in the Ghat Desert in western Libya, part of the Sahara. The massif is famous for its prehistoric rock art, which spans the period 12,000 BC. e. - 100 AD e. and reflects cultural and natural changes in the area. The drawings depict animals such as giraffes, elephants, ostriches, camels and horses, as well as people in various situations of everyday life, such as dancing and playing musical instruments.
Serra da Capivara is a national park located in the northeastern part of Brazil in the east of the state of Piaui. The park contains many caves containing examples of prehistoric art. The drawings, in great detail, depict animals and trees, as well as scenes from hunting. A prominent site in the park, Pedra Furada contains the oldest remains of human activity on the continent, which significantly changed the understanding of the peopling of the Americas. In order to preserve numerous prehistoric exhibits and drawings, the Brazilian government created this national park.
The Lascaux Cave is located in southwest France and is famous for its cave paintings dating back to the Paleolithic period. The cave contains about 2,000 drawings, which can be grouped into three main categories: animals, human figures and abstract signs. The cave is one of the places on the planet where you will not be allowed.
Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site consisting of over 600 rock shelters located in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India. These shelters contain the earliest traces of human activity in India; according to archaeologists, some of them could have been inhabited more than 100 thousand years ago. Most of the designs are in red and white colors and depict animals such as crocodiles, lions, tigers and others.
Laas Gaal
Laas Gaal is a cave complex located on the outskirts of the city of Hargeisa in Somalia. Known for its well-preserved rock art. The drawings date back to the ninth - third millennia BC. e. and depict mainly cows, people, giraffes, wolves or dogs.
The Altamira Cave is located near the town of Santillana del Mar, Cantabria in Spain. It was accidentally discovered in 1879 by amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. This great archaeological discovery is famous for its ancient cave paintings from the Upper Paleolithic era (35 - 12 thousand years ago), which depict bison, horses, wild boars, human handprints and more.
Cueva de las Manos
Cueva de las Manos is a cave located in southern Argentina, in the province of Santa Cruz, in the valley of the Pinturas River. Known for archaeological and paleontological finds. First of all, these are cave paintings depicting human hands, the oldest of which date back to the ninth millennium BC. e. The left hands of teenage boys are depicted on the walls of the cave. This fact suggested that these images were part of an ancient ritual. In addition to hands, on the walls of the cave there are depictions of guanacos, rheas, cats and other animals, as well as scenes of hunting them.
Vintage cave paintings of primitive people were very amazing images, mostly they were all drawn on stone walls.
There is an opinion that the cave paintings of ancient people are various animals that were hunted at that time. Then these drawings played a major role in magical rituals; hunters wanted to attract real animals during their hunt.
Pictures and cave paintings of primitive people very often resemble a two-dimensional image. Rock art is very rich in drawings of bison, rhinoceroses, deer, and mammoths. Also in many pictures you can see hunting scenes or men with spears and arrows.
What did the first people draw?
Rock paintings of ancient people- this is one of the manifestations of their emotional state and imaginative thinking. Not everyone was able to create a vivid image of an animal or a hunt; only those people who could create such an image in their subconscious could do this.
There is also an assumption that ancient people transmitted their visions and life experiences, that’s how they expressed themselves.
Where did primitive people draw?
Sections of caves that were hard to find - this is one of the best places for drawing. This explains the significance of rock paintings. Drawing was a certain ritual; artists worked in the light of stone lamps.
LASCO CAVE
The paintings on the ceiling and walls of the Lascaux cave in France were even better than those in Altamira. This cave was discovered in 1940 by a boy while playing with his dog. The boy was throwing stones to the dog and suddenly heard that one of the stones had fallen somewhere deep. The next day he decided to go down there with a flashlight. He found himself in a cave, on the ceiling and walls of which he saw huge images of animals: bison, bulls, horses, deer and other animals. They were painted with red, yellow, black, and brown paints. As it turned out later, the length of all the passages of this cave was 180 meters. The width of the largest hall, the “hall of bulls,” was 7.5 m, and the height was more than 7 m. Some drawings reached a length of up to 3 meters. Scientists analyzed the drawings and found that they were drawn 18,000 years ago. Lascaux Cave is considered the oldest cave with paintings known to paleontologists.
Chauvet Cave
In 1912, the Chauvet Cave was discovered in the south of France near the city of Dark, this discovery became a real sensation. Scientists believed that primitive painting must have developed in stages in the ancient world. The images in Chauvet Cave suggest otherwise. Some of the drawings are 33,000 years old, which suggests that our ancestors mastered painting even before migrating to Europe. The image of black rhinoceroses from Chauvet is considered the oldest image known to scientists. Mostly on the walls of the cave, ancient people depicted animals: panthers, horses, deer, as well as woolly rhinoceroses, tarpans, cave lions and other animals that lived during the Ice Age. The Chauvet Cave has been closed and tourists are not allowed there, as changes in the composition of the air can lead to the destruction of the images.
Even archaeologists are allowed to work in this cave for no more than 1 hour.
Caves of Nerja
In 1959, in the vicinity of the city of Nerja in Andalusia (Spain), a network of huge caves of amazing beauty was discovered. Some of the passages are open to tourists, and in one of the caves there is a real natural amphitheater; the room has excellent acoustics; concerts are held in this cave. Fur seals and seals are depicted on the walls. Pieces of charcoal were found near the drawings, radiocarbon dating of which determined the age to be between 43,500 and 42,300 years. If paleontologists prove that the paintings in the Nerja caves are significantly older than the cave paintings from Chauvet, this discovery will confirm that Neanderthals had the ability to create no less than Homo sapiens.
Kapova Cave (Shulgan-Tash)
A cave was found on the Belaya River (Bashkiria) in the area of the Shulgan-Tash nature reserve. The longest cave in the Urals. Drawings of people from the Paleolithic era were found in the cave. Horses, mammoths and other animals were depicted on the walls and ceiling of the cave. Ancient people painted in this cave with a natural pigment based on animal fats - ocher. Several drawings were drawn in charcoal. The age of these drawings is about 18,000 years. Human figures are also depicted. Paleontologists believe that ancient people created such images to appease the “gods of the hunt.” In 2012, the cave was closed to tourists as the drawings began to deteriorate. However, a virtual Kapova Cave was created.
Cueva de las Manos cave
In the province of Santa Cruz (Argentina), the ancient cave Cueva de las Manos (“Cave of Many Hands”) was found. It was discovered in 1964 by Professor of Archeology Carlos Gradin. The cave contains many wall paintings and human handprints, the oldest of which date back to the 9th millennium BC. e. About 800 prints are superimposed on each other and form a mosaic of different tsets. Scientists have not yet figured out the meaning of the images of palms and arms. Of the 800 prints, only 36 are right-hand prints. Moreover, a large number of prints belong to teenage boys. Most likely, with the help of such prints, the tribe identified its relatives.
In addition to handprints, on the walls of the cave there are images of people, ostriches, horses and geometric figures with ornaments. There are also entire prehistoric masterpieces depicting the hunting process.