Definition: Chauvet Cave is currently the oldest rock art site in the world, apparently dating to the Aurignacian period in France, about 30,000-32,000 years ago. The cave is located in the Pont-d'Arc Valley of Ardèche, France, at the entrance of the Ardeche gorges between the Cevennes and Rhone valleys. It extends for nearly 500 meters into the earth, with two main rooms separated by a narrow hallway.
Paintings at Chauvet Cave
Over 420 paintings have been documented in the cave, including numerous realistic animals (reindeer, horses, aurochs, rhinocerus, buffalo), human hand prints, and abstract dot paintings. The paintings in the front hall are primarily red, dominated by red ochre, while the back hall are mainly black designs, out of charcoal.
The paintings at Chauvet are highly realistic, which is unusual for this period in paleolithic rock art. In one famous panel (a little bit is shown in the illustration) an entire pride of lions is illustrated, and the feeling of movement and power of the animals is tangible even in photographs of the cave taken in poor light and at low resolution.
Archaeology and Chauvet Cave
The preservation in the cave is remarkable. Archaeological material in Chauvet cave's deposits include thousands of animal bones, including the bones of at least 190 cave bears (Ursus spelaeus). The remains of hearths, an ivory spearhead and a human footprint have all been identified within the cave's deposits.
Chauvet Cave was discovered in 1994 by Jean-Marie Chauvet; the relatively recent discovery of an intact cave painting site has let researchers control the excavations using modern methodology. In addition, the researchers have worked to protect the site and its data. Since 1996, the site has been under investigation by an international team led by Jean Clottes, combining geology, hydrology, paleontology, and conservation studies; and, since that time, it has been closed to the public, to preserve its fragile beauty.
Dating Chauvet
The dating of Chauvet cave is based on 46 AMS radiocarbon dates taken on tiny pieces of paint from the walls, conventional radiocarbon dates on human and animal bone, and Uranium/Thorium dates on speleotherms (stalagmites). The deep age of the paintings and their realism has led in some circles to a scholarly revision of the notion of paleolithic cave art styles. However, Paul Pettitt has recently questioned the dates, arguing that the radiocarbon dates within the cave are earlier than the paintings themselves, which he believes are Gravettian in style and date to no earlier than about 27,000 BP.
Additional radiocarbon dating of the cave bear population continues to support the original date of the cave: the bones are all between 37,000 and 29,000 years old, and samples from a nearby cave support the idea that cave bears may have been extinct in the region by 29,000 years ago. That would mean that the paintings, which include cave bears, must be at least 29,000 years old. But the controversy is continuing.
Werner Herzog and Chauvet Cave
In late 2010, film director Werner Herzog presented a documentary film of Chauvet Cave, shot in three-dimensions, at the Toronto film festival. The film, Cave of the Forgotton Dreams, premiered in limited movie houses in the United States on April 29, 2011.
Sources
This glossary entry is part of the Guide to Prehistoric Cave Art.
AbadÃa OM, and Morales MRG. 2007. Thinking about 'style' in the 'post-stylistic era': reconstructing the stylistic context of Chauvet. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 26(2):109-125.
Bahn PG. 1995. New developments in Pleistocene art. Evolutionary Anthropology 4(6):204-215.
Bocherens H, Drucker DG, Billiou D, Geneste J-M, and van der Plicht J. 2006. Bears and humans in Chauvet Cave (Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardèche, France): Insights from stable isotopes and radiocarbon dating of bone collagen. Journal of Human Evolution 50(3):370-376.
Bon C, Berthonaud V, Fosse P, Gély B, Maksud F, Vitalis R, Philippe M, van der Plicht J, and Elalouf J-M. Low Regional Diversity Of Late Cave Bears Mitochondrial Dna At The Time Of Chauvet Aurignacian Paintings. Journal of Archaeological Science In Press, Accepted Manuscript.
Chauvet J-M, Deschamps EB, and Hillaire C. 1996. Chauvet Cave: The world's oldest paintings, dating from around 31,000 BC. Minerva 7(4):17-22.
Clottes J, and Lewis-Williams D. 1996. Upper Palaeolithic cave art: French and South African collaboration. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6(1):137-163.
Feruglio V. 2006 De la faune au bestiaire - La grotte Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, aux origines de l'art pariétal paléolithique. Comptes Rendus Palevol 5(1-2):213-222.
Genty D, Ghaleb B, Plagnes V, Causse C, Valladas H, Blamart D, Massault M, Geneste J-M, and Clottes J. 2004. Datations U/Th (TIMS) et 14C (AMS) des stalagmites de la grotte Chauvet (Ardèche, France) : intérêt pour la chronologie des événements naturels et anthropiques de la grotte. Comptes Rendus Palevol 3(8):629-642.
Marshall M. 2011. Bear DNA hints at age of Chauvet cave art. The New Scientist 210(2809):10-10.
Pettitt P. 2008. Art and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe: Comments on the archaeological arguments for an early Upper Paleolithic antiquity of the Grotte Chauvet art. Journal of Human Evolution 55(5):908-917.
No comments:
Post a Comment