Chauvet Cave

The Chauvet Cave is located in the south of France. It contains the oldest cave painting from 30,000+ YA. One could say that the Chauvet Cave is the birthplace of art. The date places the drawings in the Aurignacian, or the early Upper Paleolithic period. The Chauvet Cave is considered one of the most important and oldest prehistoric art sites. 

WHAT?

The Chauvet Cave was discovered in December 1994 by Jean Marie-Chauvet, Christian Hillaire, and Éliette Brunel. Since Chauvet and his friends enjoyed studying caves, they were curious to see what they could find. They explored almost the entire network of chambers, and on the way back out, Éliette saw an amazing sight: a small mammoth drawn with red ochre on a rocky spur hanging from the ceiling. They had discovered ART! They started paying close attention to the walls and they discovered hundreds of paintings and engravings.

Among the mammoth painting they discovered paintings and carvings of cavebears, horses, bison, cave lions, rhinos, owls, and hyenas.

The Chauvet Cave is probably so important because it contains the oldest paintings known to mankind.  This cave is so different from any other cave because it contains paintings of carnivorous animals rather than non-threatening animals. This is really unusual for cave art because they usually draw animals that can be hunted.  Another unusual thing about the cave is that the artists drew pictures of animals that were not thought to be prehistoric, such as the owls. Another unique fact about the cave is that the artists that painted these animals used techniques not often seen in other cave art.  Typical of most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures, although there is one possible partial "Venus" figure that may represent the legs and genitals of a woman. Also an imaginary figure may be present; it appears to have the lower body of a woman with the upper body of a bison.

Probably the most famous painting in the cave.

HOW?

Many of the paintings appear to have been made only after the walls were scraped clear of debris. This left a smoother and noticeably lighter area upon which the artists worked.  The tools used are not known because they have not survived this time period but one can guess that they started with their hands and used sticks and rocks or maybe animal bone to carve. One type of method experts are sure they used is spray painting. By mixing pigment with water and spraying it either directly from their mouths or through tubes made out of animal bones they were able to create a spray paint type image. There are many handprints done using this method.

The oldest hand print, it most likely belonged to a male.

WHY?

There are many theories on why prehistoric people paint animals. It is hard today to interpret the art of the Upper Paleolithic because so much has changed over the 30,000 years since its creation. When studying Paleolithic art we are only observing a small proportion of what was made, only the surviving art. Many conjectures can be made as to what these paintings meant to the people who painted them.  While art historians often view this early cave art as the ‘awakening’ of a human instinct to study the world around them, the majority of pre-historians believe instead that it is part of a wider cultural behavior. One suggestion is that the art represented a type of communication related to the behavior of animals. I believe that the paintings are the result of a basic need of expression that is innate to human beings

For a tour of the cave: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/