Read the article by a journalist about some ancient rock paintings that were found in a cave in France, and then answer the following questions.
Ancient cave art
In December 1994, three climbers were climbing a cliff in southern France when they came across a small opening. They made the opening wider, and then crawled along a narrow passage into a large cave. To their amazement, they saw hundreds of beautiful images of animals on the cave walls. As they walked through the cave, they realised they were stepping on animal bones. Later tests showed that these were thousands of years old.
The climbers told the local authorities about the cave, and experts were sent to study it. The experts realised it was a very important discovery. They identified more than 400 drawings and paintings of 15 different animal species. Some were between 28 000 and 31 000 years old. The majority, however, dated back 35 000 years. Experts also worked out that there had been a 4000-year interval when no art was created in the cave.
They also concluded there had been a rock fall about 27 000 years ago. The entrance became blocked and remained so until 1994. The cave was therefore frozen in time, which helped to preserve the images, and as a result, they look fresher than prehistoric cave paintings found elsewhere. Exposing the rock paintings to normal air and people for any length of time would damage them. So since the cave was discovered, very few people have been allowed inside, and only for a limited time. Various studies have been carried out, however. Scientists established that the walls had been cleaned before they were painted, meaning that the background colour is lighter than in other caves. They also identified the materials the artists used: pieces of iron, brushes created from horsehair and pointed stones for scratching lines. Experts also noted that the images seem more alive than cave paintings anywhere else.
Soon after the cave was found, the authorities named it Chauvet. People often assume this is the name of the local town, but in fact it’s the surname of one of its discoverers. In 2007, the French government decided to show the world what Chauvet was like by building an exact copy of it a few kilometres away from the real cave. This reconstruction, named Caverne du Pont D’Arc, finally opened in 2015, and I visited it one summer’s day. The group I was with walked down a concrete tunnel towards a large door. I knew it was a new building, but as I went through the door, I had the sense of going into a genuine cave. The temperature was suddenly very cool, so I was glad I had brought a jacket. Also, I immediately noticed that the atmosphere was damper than outside.
As we went further inside, our guide pointed out different features of the ‘cave’. The images, exactly like the originals, include rhinos, panthers, hyenas, lions and birds, as well as other now extinct species, and are stunning. The Chauvet cave paintings also show animals like deer and bison, which humans hunted for food. However, unlike in other caves, many of the Chauvet animals are much more aggressive. There are also some scenes of animals interacting – something not found elsewhere. Like all the other images, the lions are beautifully painted, but the thing that stood out for me was the fact that their faces are human-like.
At one point during the visit, I asked the guide why people didn’t feature in the paintings on the walls. She said this wasn’t uncommon in ancient cave art and it revealed what the world was like when the artists were alive: dominated by large and dangerous animals. Very different from today.
What did the climbers notice on the floor of the cave?