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Lascaux: I Was There!

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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This article about the Lascaux Caves and prehistoric paintings (in France) is a must-read for Forteans.

The original paintings were becoming degraded by the humidity and bugs introduced by visitors, so an accurate replica was built to show the tourists.

By the early 1960s, the polluted air coming in on visitors' shoes, clothing, and breath was seriously damaging the ancient paintings. In 1963 the cave was closed to the public, visits thereafter limited to groups of four bona fide experts per week, entering through a specially built hermetic airlock.

And I am guilty! Yes, in 1961 I visited the caves on a school trip, so I contributed to the pollution that was buggering up these priceless prehistoric relics.

But at least I played a useful part in keeping these moronic dumbos (as described in the article) away from the real thing.

(I still have souvenir pics of the actual paintings.)
 
Wow - you lucky bugger! I've always been fascinated by these paintings. Altho' as a child I imagined that they were massive in scale, and that the caves were the size of a cathedral interior ;)
 
What did Picasso say when he viewed the caves?

We [Modern artistic man] have invented nothing!

Well, I believe that those sentiments should be refering to the grand scheme of things.
 
I actually did my dissertation on the Paleolithic cave art at Lascaux and Altimara :D

In m my third year at Uni we were supposed to go on a field trip there, but due to cutbacks (less money for Science, more for law & Business) we couldn't go. i actually had an opportunity to go whilst still in my second year for £30, as some third years had dropped out. but i couldn't afford! little did i know it was the last chance.
Still haven't been!

Didn't paul Deveraux write a book about the use of sound and music as ritual at lascaux? or was that someone else? Richard Rudgley devotes a chapter or two to it in 'Lost civilisations of the stone age'
Highly recommended.
 
This article mentions a star map as well:

Prehistoric Star Maps Discovered
August 10, 2000 08:40 CDT

The star map gives insight into our ancestors' minds

Could our prehistoric ancestors have known about such things as constellations and stellar bodies? Recent discoveries may give insight into our ancestors' minds.

One prehistoric map of the starry night sky has been discovered on the walls of the famous painted caves at Lascaux in central France. The map, thought to date back 16,500 years, shows three bright stars which are referred to today as the Summer Triangle. Also found among the Lascaux frescos is a map of the Pleiades star cluster.

And another such find has surfaced. A pattern of stars, drawn approximately 14,000 years ago, was found in a cave in Spain.

According to German researcher Dr. Michael Rappenglueck, of the University of Munich, the maps show that our ancestors were more sophisticated than many of us can imagine.

The Lascaux caves were discovered in 1940. Their spectacular drawings of bulls, horses and antelope were painted 16,500 years ago. The walls of Lascaux show the artistic talents of our distant ancestors. But it is now believed that the drawings may also demonstrate their scientific knowledge as well. These caves could be a prehistoric planetarium in which humanity first charted the stars.

The sky map was found in a region of the Lascaux caves known as the Shaft of the Dead Man. Painted on the wall of the shaft is a bull, a strange bird-man and a mysterious bird on a stick.

According to Dr. Rappenglueck, these outlines form a map of the sky with the eyes of the bull, birdman and bird representing the three prominent stars Vega, Deneb and Altair.

Together, these stars are more commonly known as the Summer Triangle and they are among the brightest objects that can be picked out high overhead during the middle months of the northern summer.

Around 17,000 years ago, this region of sky would never have set below the horizon and it would have been especially prominent at the start of spring.

"It is a map of the prehistoric cosmos," said Dr. Rappenglueck. "It was their sky, full of animals and spirit guides."

But this sky map is not the only evidence that prehistoric man took a keen interest in the night sky. Nearer to the entrance of the Lascaux cave complex is a magnificent painting of a bull. Hanging over its shoulder is what appears to be a map of the Pleiades, the cluster of stars sometimes called the Seven Sisters.

Inside the bull painting, there are also indications of spots that may be a representation of other stars found in that region of sky.

Today, this region forms part of the constellation of Taurus the bull, showing that mankind's identification of this part of the sky stretches back thousands of years.

Dr. Rappenglueck has also identified a star map painted on the walls of the Cueva di El Castillo cave in Spain 14,000 years ago. This cave is located in the mountains of Pico del Castillo and contains a region called the Frieze of Hands. At the end of this remarkable section can be found a curved pattern of dots.

"Nobody paid much attention to it," said Dr Rappenglueck. "But, it is obviously a drawing of the constellation we call the Northern Crown. It is remarkable."

The archaeologists who have looked at Dr Rappengleuck's conclusions have so far agreed that they are reasonable and that he may have uncovered the earliest evidence of humanity's interest in the stars.

Staff Writer Gayle Hefley

Archived Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20001018052935/http://www.cosmiverse.com/science081001.html
 
I found the article facinating. I couldn't help wondering if the apparent supidity of some of the tourists isn't some kind of Fortean phenomina in it's own right.

Cujo
 
doubt crept in briefly

The only French palaeolithic art cave I have managed to visit is Rouffignac in the Dordogne- full of mammoth carvings which resist the normal fungus problems by being carved into the walls rather than painted.
I went in '79, and soon after that the carvings were disputed by someone called Glyn Daniels, and for many years this cave was of doubtful authenticity.
I'm glad to say that the pendulum has swung back, and this page includes a book review incuding the comment:
Rouffignac is undoubtedly a genuine Palaeolithic decorated cave, and most of the art in its miles of galleries is unquestionably authentic
so that's alright then.
Archaeology is full of disputes, and there really doesn't seem to be a narrowminded consensus like some people think - actually they all seem to want to rewrite history one way or another
 
Sally said:
This article mentions a star map as well...
I don't recall hearing about the star maps at Lascaux before. A pity the webpage's pictures are not displaying.

I have some scans of my souvenir pics, but they're too big to squirt down the wires. (I may resize or rescan later today.)
 
Yes i was disappointed that the piccies didnt work too :(

Sounds very intriguing.
 
The Official Lascaux website shows the paintings, and gives plenty of other info.

Move your mouse over the Home page while it loads for an interesting effect! Follow Discover and then Virtual Tour for the images.

(An excellent website, IMO. Simple to navigate, neat, does not overload you with waffle.)
 
4imix said:
Didn't paul Deveraux write a book about the use of sound and music as ritual at lascaux?

That he did, and a fine book it is too! "Stoneage Soundtracks" definately recommended...

One idea mentioned in the book is that the paintings are situated at points in the cave that resonate most strongly with certain vocal frequencies - amplifying the chanting that may have taken place there, and setting up standing waves of powerful sound.

The paintings were markers of these sonic nodes, and also the record of the altered states that the sounds produced in the chnaters.

Images also marked points where echos produced sounds very similar to those made by the depicted creatures...

bye

Martin
 
MOHMU said:
That he did, and a fine book it is too! "Stoneage Soundtracks" definately recommended...

Ms imix, take note for the Xmas List :D
 
:confused: I'm worried. Today I thought I'd look out my Lascaux souvenirs, and maybe rescan them.

But I couldn't find them.

The souvenirs I have are from other prehistoric caves in the same region, but I seem to have nothing from Lascaux.

But I have Lascaux pics on my computer created in June 2000, which I'd assumed I'd scanned from my own stuff (this would have been about when I got my scanner) - but all the pics were modified in May 2000 - weird! Also, they are in GIF format, which I would not normally use for this type of pic. All of which suggests these were just pics I pulled off the web.

So now I begin to wonder if I did visit Lascaux at all. I was certainly in the area (our hotel was at Souillac, only 15 miles from Lascaux). Or else I DID vist Lascaux, but bought no souvenirs, or have subsequently lost them. It would seem stupid to visit the region and NOT go to the most famous site.

Is this False Memory, or Imperfect Memory?
 
Perhaps you went there but decided not to keep momentos because it was a replica?
(edit)oh- sorry, no, you remember seeing the real one don't you?

Regarding the star maps,
here are some pictures...
I' m not sure...
The summer triangle is a triangle! Not too difficult to match.
If the rest of Cygnus, say , was depicted, then perhaps he'd have a point. Instead the constellations are depicted as images- a bird, a bull, a 'birdman'. Cygnus is a striking pattern and useful for orientation, you perhaps would expect more easily recognised depictions of the readily observed constellations.
But these are a bit weak.

The northern crown is a crescent- a better shape to provide a correlation, but might be coincidence. this is quite good actually.

But a map of the Pleiades? They appear as a fuzzy patch - called the seven sisters yet nine are named- there are about a hundred in total - did the Lascaux people have binoculars?

It is a silly game, matching points or locations to the fantastically variable pattern of stars available in star maps and planetarium software - Hancock did it a lot for a while
that match between Angkor Wat and Draco was a hoot.

There are star maps in cave paintings, I'm sure,
but not all of*these* are convincing.
 
It's interesting that the Summer Triangle is a modern naming - it was coined by Patrick Moore some years ago in one of his books, and subsequently taken up by other people.
(Link here.)

So for most of recorded history there was no Summer Triangle - possibly because in earlier times most people were much more familiar with the skies, and would have been more interested in individual constellations than in associating three widely spaced stars together. So I doubt whether prehistoric man had much interest in it either.

The summer triangle is perhaps a product of light pollution in the modern world, where only the brighter stars are easily seen.

Recently I gave some quiz questions at our astro-soc - in preparing them I discovered that all three stars of the ST were still above the horizon at 9pm on December 4th! (Admittedly one was about to set, but around here December ain't summer!)

As for eyesight and the Pleiades, maybe the prehistoric people did have sharper eyesight. Some people still do - the aborigines of OZ have sharper eyes than Caucasians, and can see the Galilean satellites with the naked eye. The Lascaux Pleiades in relation to the Bull do seem more convincing than the ST, IMHO.

If they are meant to represent those constellations, it's an awesome thought that the name of the Bull should have lasted so many thousand years - unless it's a re-invention at a later date, by some other peoples who also noticed the likeness between a V of stars and the horned head of a bull.
 
Problems with dating cave art.
There is good reason to doubt chronologies based purely on style, admits Chris Witcombe, an art historian at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. He explains the difficulty with an analogy: "Imagine you are living in the distant future and only two objects survive from a lost and forgotten past: a painting by Picasso and a painting by Michelangelo. Which is the earlier work and which the later?"
 
French caver makes historic find

A French caver has discovered prehistoric cave art believed to date back 27,000 years - older than the famous Lascaux paintings.
Gerard Jourdy, 63, said he found human and animal remains in the chamber in the Vilhonneur forest, in caves once used to dispose of animal carcasses.

The paintings included a hand in cobalt blue, he told AFP news agency.

The discovery was made in November, but kept secret while initial examinations were carried out.

Mr Jourdy also said he saw a sculpture of a face made from a stalactite - which would be a scientific first for the era, but experts were dubious about this claim, AFP says.

"In a small chamber I found the bones of two hyenas - complete skeletons, which is rare. And I saw human bones amid the debris - tibias, vertebrae and shoulder-blades," he told the news agency.

"Then in the bigger chamber there was this hand - very beautiful, very delicate. There was just the one in cobalt blue. When you come into the chamber it is like it is greeting you. It's incredible."

The French culture ministry confirmed the findings, but a spokesman said that although the discovery was of interest, the paintings were not as spectacular as those in the Cosquer and Chauvet caves in the Ardeche.

The Lascaux Caves, in the Dordogne, are among the best known and most important prehistoric sites of Stone Age cave art.

Experts think the caves were used for hunting rituals and shamanistic rites, and it is thought that the first paintings were done some 17,000 years ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4686724.stm
 
How Old ARE Those French Cave Paintings?

A news item just the other day revealed that new cave paintings had been discovered in France which were "more than twice as old" as the bulls and bears of the Lascaux cave.

The NEW paintings date fully back to 25,000 BC.

The Lascaux art, we are informed, dates to only 11,000 BC ("13,000 years ago").

But my understanding is that the Lascaux galleries date back to 30,000 - 35,000 BC. That's what I learned in school, at any rate, as well as in an art appreciation course later on.

When were these figures so drastically revised?

According to my education (or lack of it) 11,000 BC is already into the neolithic.
 
Eburacum45~ said:
Regarding the star maps,
here are some pictures ... I'm not sure ...

The BBC article says that ”According to German researcher Dr Michael Rappenglueck, of the University of Munich, the maps show that our ancestors were more sophisticated than many believe.” Why is it more advanced to dot out simple pictures of two–three constellations than to paint all these beautiful animals?
 
The oldest (so far)?

Rock analysis suggests France cave art is 'oldest'
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-analysis-f ... ldest.html
May 7th, 2012 in Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

The oldest footprints of modern-day man are seen in the Chauvet cave discovered in 1999. Experts have long debated whether the sophisticated animal drawings in a famous French cave are indeed the oldest of their kind in the world, and a study out Monday suggests that yes, they are.

Experts have long debated whether the sophisticated animal drawings in a famous French cave are indeed the oldest of their kind in the world, and a study out Monday suggests that yes, they are.

The smooth curves and fine details in the paintings of bears, rhinoceroses and horses in the Chauvet cave in southern France's picturesque Ardeche region are so advanced that some scholars thought they dated from 12,000 to 17,000 years ago.

That would place them as relics of the Magdalenian culture, in which human ancestors used tools of stone and bone and created increasingly advanced art as time went on.

But scientists have previously shown through radiocarbon dating evidence of rock art, charcoal and animal bones in the Chauvet cave that the drawings are older than that, likely between 30,000-32,000 years old, befuddling some who believed that early art took on more primitive forms.

Now, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US journal, French scientists believe they have confirmation that the paintings are "the oldest and most elaborate ever discovered."

Their findings are based on an analysis -- called geomorphological and chlorine-36 dating -- of the rockslide surfaces around what is believed to be the cave's only entrance.

The research shows that an overhanging cliff began collapsing 29,000 years ago and did so repeatedly over time, definitively sealing the entrance to humans around 21,000 years ago.

That would mean the drawings had to have been done before that, bolstering the notion that they were created by people in the Aurignacian culture, which lived 28,000 to 40,000 years ago.

"Remarkably agreeing with the radiocarbon dates of the human and animal occupancy, this study confirms that the Chauvet cave paintings are the oldest and the most elaborate ever discovered, challenging our current knowledge of human cognitive evolution," said the study.

Graphic on the Chauvet cave in southern France, confirmed to hold the world's "oldest and most elaborate" prehistoric art ever discovered, according to a geological study to establish the age of the paintings.

According to lead author Benjamin Sadier, the findings put an end to any debate over when the drawings may have been done based on their style.
"What our work shows, and other work that will soon be published, is that the method of dating by style is no longer valid," he told AFP in a phone interview.

"By proving that this cave was closed for good 21,500 years ago, we completely eradicate the hypothesis of a more recent painting of the cave, and we also confirm the age of the cave which was already known through radiocarbon dating," he added.

"Before we were pretty sure. And now we are sure. It's a way of gathering independent proof, meaning we can figure out the age of the cave by geological means, not archeological ones."

The cave and its remarkably well-preserved paintings were closed to human access by the rockfalls and were only recently rediscovered in 1994.
Researchers involved in the work came from France's University of Savoie, Aix Marseille University and the Centre National de Prehistoire.

More information: “Further constraints on the Chauvet cave artwork elaboration,” by Benjamin Sadier et al. PNAS (2012).
 
The Official Lascaux website shows the paintings, and gives plenty of other info.

Move your mouse over the Home page while it loads for an interesting effect! Follow Discover and then Virtual Tour for the images.

(An excellent website, IMO. Simple to navigate, neat, does not overload you with waffle.)

A bump for the link to this superb site.


I spent thirty or forty minutes looking for a good book to buy with good images of the paintings, but this site is serving the purpose for free.

It's possibly the first 'virtual tour' I haven't actually hated, in fact.
 
And as a bonus, here's a documentary (reminiscent of the ones they showed you at school, but good).


I'm also about to embark on the virtual Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave tour:

Spectacular previews of some of the art here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave

Tour here:
https://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/en/explore-cave/brunel-chamber-south

And here is the acclaimed Werner Herzog documentary from 2010:

http://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_Forgotten_Dreams
 
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And as a bonus, here's a documentary (reminiscent of the ones they showed you at school, but good).


I re-watched this again last night and the whole thing captivated me.

A couple of loose thoughts occurred:

66bbf52c1240a69bb9a22b0d58e10f9b.png


As noted, the only human figure depicted at Lascaux is the relatively crude one in 'the shaft' hunting scene, who seems to have either been knocked from his feet by a bison or is reeling in the face of its charge. Passing over his erect penis (except to note 'the thrill of the hunt' and that the bison's death will give life to the tribe), I wonder whether his bird-like head and the (more plausible-looking) bird mounted on the staff beneath him, could perhaps offer a clue to contemporary hunting techniques. Did primitive man, for instance, either 'disguise' himself in order to approach his prey undetected (more than simple camouflage) or perhaps use mounted birds to assure cattle that all was well. In my mind, I'm picturing the flaring of a bird into flight as the classic telltale sign of an approach; could a decoy here--stuffed or preserved--be planted to soothe the minds of the bison or deer and lull them into the belief that the quarter from which the hunter was approaching was currently safe from attack?

On the broad and speculative subject of 'hunting magic' (and having not read enough anthropology to know whether there is evidence for this elsewhere), I was taken with the whimsical notion that primitive man might have been driven to acknowledge or somehow make figurative amends for his kills. I mean this not so much in the sense of keeping a celestial tally of everything he took, but rather that he might be driven to 'replace' what he had physically removed in pictorial form. Not on a one-for-one basis, naturally, but perhaps with an annual addition to the walls that would both record and commemorate those animals' deaths.

The night-time temperatures have just dropped here, and as I was wavering in and out of consciousness late last night, with a host of blankets and duvets draped over me and my sleeping wife and daughter, my reverie conjured a tired hunter returning to his cave on the final cusp of dusk.

Turning a bend in the tunnel and seeing the first flickering shadows thrown by the fire as yet unseen, he knew he had reached the safety of home at last and finally allowed his guard to drop.
 
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One last addition: by chance Melvyn Bragg (whose voice has aged since last I heard it) very recently hosted a discussion of this subject on his long-running Radio 4 programme (approaching 900 episodes aired).

 
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