Lascaux Cave

Ian Tattersall & Kenneth Mowbray

On September 12, 1940, in an oak forest just outside the small town of Montignac in southwestern France, four schoolboys crawled into a hole in the ground that had been exposed by the roots of a falling tree. Once inside, they crawled several dozen yards along a dark passage before finding themselves in a cavity across whose walls cascaded large and vibrant polychrome images of a variety of mammals, notably aurochs, the extinct ancestor of today's cattle. The boys had discovered the cave of Lascaux, now generally acknowledged to be the finest among several hundred decorated caves known from the last Ice Age of southern France and northern Spain. Lascaux, a solution cavity in ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.