Can you visit the real Chauvet Cave?
Can you visit the real Chauvet Cave?
The real Chauvet Cave (Grotte Chauvet) is a few kilometres down the road and under 24/7 closely guarded surveillance. Only a handful of people (archaeologists and speleologists mostly) are allowed to enter per year.
Is the Chauvet Cave closed?
The cave has been sealed off to the public since 1994. Access is severely restricted owing to the experience with decorated caves such as Altamira and Lascaux found in the 19th and 20th century, where the admission of visitors on a large scale led to the growth of mold on the walls that damaged the art in places.
Why is the Chauvet Cave closed?
From at least around 21,000 years ago onwards until its rediscovery in 1994 CE, the Chauvet Cave was completely sealed off to visitors due to the entrance having collapsed.
How old are the paintings in Chauvet Cave?
between 30,000 and 32,000 years old
Within a year of Chauvet’s discovery, radiocarbon dating suggested the images were between 30,000 and 32,000 years old, making them almost twice the age of the famous Lascaux cave art in south-west France (see map).
Are people able to visit the Lascaux cave?
You do not get to go into the original Lascaux caves. They were closed to tourists to preserve the very fragile 15,000 year old cave paintings from degradation. The original Lascaux is about 200 meters away and is restricted to archeological research.
Who lived in Chauvet Cave?
But Chauvet Cave is unusually big and was inhabited by prehistoric humans during two distinct periods: the Aurignacian (c. 40,000-26,000 BCE) and the Gravettian (26,000-20,000 BCE): that is, firstly about 31,000-29,000 BCE, and later about 26,000 BCE, after which the cave was sealed by a landslide.
What is significant about Chauvet cave?
Chauvet Cave’s importance is based on two factors: firstly, the aesthetic quality of these Palaeolithic cave paintings, and secondly, their great age. With one exception, all of the cave art paintings have been dated between 30,000 & 33,000 years ago.
What was found in the Chauvet cave?
The floor of the cave is littered with archaeological and palaeontological remains, including the skulls and bones of cave bears, which hibernated there, along with the skulls of an ibex and two wolves. The cave bears also left innumerable scratches on the walls and footprints on the ground.
What makes the Chauvet Cave paintings particularly special?
What was most impressive about the discovery of the Chauvet Cave?
“We propose that the spray shape signs found in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave could be the oldest known depiction of a volcanic eruption.” The theory suggests that these cave paintings are indeed the earliest depiction of a natural disaster in the world.