A remarkable and comprehensive study published on 2016 pushed the dates of the art of Chauvet Cave in France back to about 10,000 years earlier than we previously thought.
“Chauvet-Pont d’Arc is a cave located in the Ardèche département, a region that is found in south-central France. Discovered in 1994, it features human hand prints as well as drawings of 14 different animal species, ranging from cave bears to big cats. It was long believed to be the oldest known human-decorated cave in the world, with its artwork estimated to be from between 22,000-18,000 BCE.” (Pilny 2016) Chauvet is certainly one of the most admired painted caves in Europe for the striking quality and sophistication of its imagery.
“From their analysis, the researchers discovered a totally new timeline for the cave. According to their results humans left their furst marks inside the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago, and then occupied the cave again from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago - although the researchers don’t think humans and bears tried to live in the cave at the same time.” (Pilny 2016) These dates are within the Upper Paleolithic period known as the Aurignacian.
Coexisting
with cave bears might have periodically been a slippery situation. Humans did
hunt cave bears on occasion and, when we consider the number of people killed
by bears in the modern world, I would suspect the opposite may have also
happened once in a while as well.
"Before these cave painters could move into their respective studios, some of them had to evict existing tenants. In two French caves containing paintings dating back around 32,000 years ago, ancient humans displaced cave bears in order to claim the sites for themselves, according to a study published in April in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Cave bears even appear on some of the art on the wall. Researchers came to this determination after they 'performed radiocarbon dating, mitochondrial DNA analysis and isotope investigations of cave bear remains from Chauvet-Pont d'Arc and Deux-Ouvertures caves located along the Ardeche River in France,' according to Discovery News' Jennifer Viegas. Whether humans are responsible for the broader cave-bear extinction in the region is still unclear. Environmental and/or climatic changes may have also played a role." (DNews 2016)
"We compiled a set of more than 250 radiocarbon dates related to the rock art, human activities, and bone remains in the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave (Ardeche, France) and derived a modeled absolute chronology of the human and cave bear occupations of this site, presented here in calendar years. It provides an insightful framework for the successive events that occurred in the cave during the Paleolithic period.” (Quiles 2016)
"Radiocarbon dates for the ancient drawings in the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave revealed ages much older than expected. These early ages and nature of this Paleolithic art make this United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) site indisputably unique. A large, multidisciplinary dating program has recently mepped the anthropological evolution associated with the cave. More than 350 dates (by 14C, U-Th, TL and 36Cl) were obtained over the last 15 y. They include 259 radiocarbon dates, bainly related to the rock art and human activity in the cave. We present here more than 80 previously unpublished dates. All fo the dates were integrated into a high-precision Bayesian model based on archaeological evidence to securely reconstruct the complete history of the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave on an absolute timescale. It shows that there were two distinct periods of human activity in the cave, one from 37 to 33,599 y ago, and the other from 31 to 28,000 y ago. Cave bears also took refuge in the cave until 33,000 y ago." (Qiles 2016)
“Other dating methods were applied to different materials. Heated wall fragments were dated by thermoluminescence to determine the age of hearth structures. Uranium-series dating was applied to carbonate concretions superimposed on some 14C-dated charcoal, yielding a “terminus ante quem” for the deposit of this charcoal. The latter was recently confirmed by 36Cl exposure dating of rock, indicating collapses that occurred in the past and that sealed off the (paleo) entrance of the cave, thereby confirming the early age of the art contained inside.” (Quiles 2016) Notice the detailed dating using different methods as cross-checks. C14 dating with Uranium series dating, Chlorine 36 dating and thermoluminescence dating. As a layman I find this very impressive and am inclined to give their results considerable weight.
"Using a robust interdisciplinary approach, our modeled results clearly support previous hypotheses postulating two different occupations of the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave. They definitively show that humans frequented the site during two distinct time periods, between 37,000 - 33,500 and 31,000 - 28,000 y ago. These clear results, based on a large number of dates obtained from diverse materials introduced into the cave through various biological or anthropogenic processed, provide a decisive argument in favor of the realization of the parietal art works before 28,000 y ago. They now enable further extensive exploration of the remarkable rock art created in the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave during these two occupation phases." (Quiles 2016)
“However, dangerous rock slides drove both humans and bears away from the cave, with the mouth finally being sealed by rock around 23,500 to 21,500 years ago. Either way, though, the new timeline of the animal cave paintings puts them in the same range as the Sulawesi ones in Indonesia, meaning Chauvet-Pont d’Arc may just contain the oldest known animal drawings on Earth.” (Pilny 2016)
Based upon these results the team has stated that Chauvet cave art may be the oldest in the world and that seems a stretch when much of the cave art we know of has not yet been dated, to say nothing about cave art not yet discovered. And, since their study was published, a cave painting in Sulawesi, Indonesia, has been dated to 43,500 BCE which is considerably older (6.5k) than the new dates for Chauvet. Still, this is a very impressive study for very impressive art, and a positive contribution for which we should all be grateful.
NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
DNews, 2016, Cave Art in France 10,000 Yrs Older Than Thought, 13 April 2016, https://seeker.com/. Accessed online 16 June 2023.
Pilny, Susanna, 2016, French cave paintings are 10,000 years older than we thought, oldest in the world, 12 April 2016, https://www.redorbit.com/news/. Accessed online 17 June 2023.
Quiles, Anita et al., 2016, A high-precision chronological model for the decorated Upper
Paleolithic cave of Chauvet-Pont dArc, Ardeche, France, 11 April 2016,
PNAS, 113 (17), 4670-4675, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523158113.
Accessed online 16 June 2023.
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