1940. Four teenagers and a dog accidentally discover the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory. 17,000 years after their creation, Lascaux's frescoes still pose the same questions: why? how?
By Artedusa
••15 min read
Mysteries of Lascaux Cave Paintings
Four teenagers and a dog accidentally discover the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory. 17,000 years after their creation, Lascaux's frescoes still pose the same questions: why? how?
Robot was only chasing a rabbit. This mongrel dog, half griffon, half who-knows-what, was racing through the Dordogne underbrush on that September afternoon. Marcel Ravidat, seventeen, followed him. The boy knew every tree on this hill overlooking Montignac. He knew that there, beneath that oak, lay a mysterious cavity. A week earlier, a storm had uprooted a pine, widening the opening. Robot disappeared inside. Marcel slipped in after him. In absolute darkness, he lit a makeshift lamp. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.
Bulls. Dozens of giant bulls, red, black, ochre, galloping across limestone walls. Wild horses. Stags with enormous antlers. A fantastic bestiary emerged from the depths of time. Marcel climbed back to the surface, heart pounding. He had to return. With friends. With real lamps. Four days later, on September 12, 1940, four teenagers entered what would become the world's most famous prehistoric site: the Lascaux cave.
A discovery that revolutionizes art history
Imagine the scene. France is in the midst of defeat. The German army has occupied the northern part of the country for three months. In Montignac, a small town of 3,000 souls in the Périgord region, life goes on as best it can. Kids wander the countryside. Adults worry. No one imagines that a few meters underground lies a millennia-old treasure.
Marcel Ravidat, then. Jacques Marsal, fifteen. Georges Agnel, sixteen. Simon Coencas, fourteen. Four ordinary boys who would accomplish one of the major archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. Their teacher, Léon Laval, immediately understood the importance of the find. He alerted Abbé Henri Breuil, the "pope of prehistory," who had taken refuge in Brive. Breuil rushed over. What he discovered stunned him. "It's the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory," he declared, coining a phrase that would travel the world.
But why such excitement? Because Lascaux resembles nothing known. Certainly, decorated caves had already been discovered: Altamira in Spain as early as 1879, Font-de-Gaume and Les Combarelles in the Dordogne in 1901. But Lascaux surpasses everything. In quantity: nearly 2,000 animal figures and geometric signs. In quality: astounding artistic mastery. In state of preservation: the paintings seem fresh, as if the artist had just put down his brush.
The Hall of Bulls: a 17,000-year-old masterpiece
When you enter Lascaux – or rather, when you entered Lascaux before its closure to the public in 1963 – the first room grabs you by the throat. It's called the "Hall of Bulls," but that's an understatement. Imagine a natural rotunda about 17 meters long by 6 wide. Across this vast limestone ceiling runs a mind-blowing animal frieze: four gigantic aurochs, black as night, over 5 meters long each.
Five meters! To put this in perspective, that's longer than a car. These prehistoric bovines – ancestors of modern bulls – dominate the space with their colossal mass. Their lyre-shaped horns frame tiny heads. Their stocky bodies seem charged with primal energy. Between them gallops a herd of horses, ochre and red. Stags bound. A bear can be glimpsed. The whole forms a whirlwind of life, a visual symphony defying millennia.
How did they do it? The question has haunted prehistorians for eighty years. The artists of Lascaux had neither scaffolding, nor electric lighting, nor paint in tubes. They worked by the flickering light of fat lamps – dozens have been found in the cave. These rudimentary lamps, carved from sandstone, burned bone marrow or tallow. Their wavering flame cast dancing shadows on the walls, bringing the painted animals to life.
To reach the high areas, they probably used wooden or stone scaffolding. Holes in the walls suggest the use of poles. As for pigments, they came from the earth itself: red ochre drawn from hematite, yellow ochre from limonite, black from manganese or charcoal. These minerals, finely ground, were mixed with water, perhaps with animal fat or urine to fix them. White? Scraped limestone.
The art of line: a technique that defies time
Look closely at these aurochs. Their outline is stunningly precise. A black line, continuous, supple, following the reliefs of the wall. The Magdalenian artists – for this is the culture to which Lascaux is attributed – perfectly mastered animal anatomy. Every muscle, every joint, every morphological detail is accurate. You can feel the weight, the movement, the life.
This accuracy is not the result of chance. The men of Lascaux were hunters. They observed daily the animals they pursued. They knew their gait, their behavior, their weak points. This intimacy with the animal world shines through in every figure. A horse neighs, ears pricked. A stag turns its head, alert. A bison charges, tail raised. These are not schematic sketches, but portraits captured from life.
But the technique is not limited to drawing. The artists used several application methods. Sometimes they drew directly with a piece of pigment, like a pencil. Sometimes they used a rudimentary brush – perhaps a chewed stick, a tuft of hair, bird feathers. For flat areas of color, they employed the blown technique: powdered pigment was projected onto the wall, either by blowing directly or using a hollow tube – a hollowed bird bone, for example.
This last method produced striking gradient effects. Look at the flanks of certain horses: the color gradually passes from bright red to pale pink, creating an illusion of volume. The artists also exploited the natural reliefs of the rock. A bump becomes a rump, a hollow suggests a belly. The wall is not simply a support: it participates in the work, giving it depth and movement.
The mystery of signs: a forgotten language?
Among the animals run strange signs. Rectangles, dots, bars, grids. What do they mean? No one really knows. Prehistorians cautiously call them "signs." Some see them as traps, others as dwellings, still others as abstract symbols whose key we have lost.
Take the "Unicorn." Yes, Lascaux has a unicorn. Well, a fantastic animal with two long straight antennae planted on its forehead. No living animal corresponds to this description. Is it a mythical creature? A masked character? A shaman in trance? The debate has raged for eighty years.
For this is the whole mystery of Lascaux: we see, but we do not understand. We admire the beauty, the technique, the power. But the meaning escapes us. These images are not simple decorations. They tell something. They convey a message. But which one?
Hunting magic or art for art's sake?
For a long time, the dominant explanation was "hunting magic." According to this theory, popularized by Abbé Breuil, prehistoric men painted animals to ensure the success of their future hunts. By representing a bison, they symbolically appropriated its strength. By "wounding" it on the wall – some figures bear lines evoking spears – they facilitated its actual capture.
This interpretation was seductive in its simplicity. It corresponded to the romantic image of the superstitious "primitive," fearful of natural forces. But it posed a major problem: the painted animals do not correspond to the hunted animals. At Lascaux, horses and aurochs dominate the walls. Yet, the bones found in Magdalenian habitats are mostly reindeer bones. So men painted what they didn't eat and ate what they didn't paint. Paradoxical, isn't it?
In the 1960s, ethnologist André Leroi-Gourhan revolutionized the interpretation of cave art. For him, decorated caves are not simple galleries of animal portraits, but sanctuaries structured according to a complex symbolic logic. He distinguished complementary animal pairs: the horse (masculine principle) and the bison (feminine principle). Their arrangement in the cave would follow a recurring pattern, testifying to a sophisticated prehistoric cosmology.
This theory, seductive in its ambition, has been largely nuanced since. Leroi-Gourhan's statistics have been contested. The distribution of animals does not seem as systematic as he claimed. But his intuition remains: the art of Lascaux is not random. It obeys rules, expresses a worldview.
The shamanic theory: dialogue with the invisible
More recently, a fascinating hypothesis has emerged: what if Lascaux was a place of shamanic trance? This idea is based on the study of current hunter-gatherer societies, notably the San of southern Africa. Among these peoples, shamans – intermediaries between the world of humans and that of spirits – paint on rocks the visions they have during their trances.
Transposed to Lascaux, this hypothesis would explain several enigmas. First, the location of paintings in deep areas, difficult to access, cut off from daylight. These dark, silent places, cut off from the outside world, would be conducive to altered states of consciousness. Next, the presence of "impossible" animals like the unicorn: hallucinatory visions rather than realistic observations.
In the "Shaft," one of the most remote rooms in Lascaux, accessible only through a narrow passage, there is a disturbing scene. A schematic, ithyphallic man falls backward before a disemboweled bison. At his feet, a bird perched on a stick. What's happening? A hunting accident? A ritual combat? A shamanic vision? Is the man dead, asleep, in a trance?
This unique scene in all Paleolithic art continues to fuel the wildest speculations. Some see it as a mythological narrative, the memory of a real drama, or the representation of a journey to the beyond. The bird-man would be the shaman himself, his soul having taken animal form to travel between worlds. The disemboweled bison would symbolize the sacrifice necessary for this transgression.
Other masterpieces in the cave
Lascaux is not limited to the Hall of Bulls. The cave extends for nearly 250 meters, offering a succession of decorated rooms and galleries. The "Axial Gallery," nicknamed the "Sistine Chapel" within the Sistine Chapel, plunges you into a whirlwind of multicolored horses. Some gallop, manes flying. Others graze peacefully. A majestic stag bellows, antlers deployed.
The "Passage," a narrow corridor connecting several rooms, presents a frieze of black cows with round bellies. Are they pregnant? This hypothesis would explain their representation: the artists would have wanted to celebrate fertility, life perpetuating itself. In the "Nave," a long gallery bordered by engravings, bison, ibex, and horses mingle in a wall choreography.
But it is perhaps in the "Apse," a small rotunda covered with entangled engravings, that the art of Lascaux reaches its peak. Here, no large colored paintings, but hundreds, thousands of lines incised into the soft limestone. The figures overlap, intersect, respond to each other. Distinguishing one animal from another is a challenge. It's a prehistoric palimpsest, testifying to repeated visits, perhaps over several generations.
The colors of Lascaux: a prehistoric palette
Where do these colors that have defied 17,000 years come from? Physicochemical analyses have revealed a surprisingly rich palette. The reds come from hematite, iron oxide naturally present in clay soils. Its shade varies from bright red to reddish-brown depending on its degree of hydration and heating. The artists sometimes heated ochre to modify its hue.
Yellows use goethite or limonite, other hydrated iron oxides. Black is obtained in two ways: either from manganese dioxide, a black mineral abundant in the region, or from charcoal. Analyses show that both were used, sometimes on the same figure. White, rarer, comes from finely ground limestone or kaolin.
These pigments were not applied pure. The artists mixed them, creating subtle nuances. A brown is composed of red ochre and black. A pink is born from diluted red ochre. These mixtures testify to genuine chromatic reflection. The painters of Lascaux were not simple decorators, but true artists mastering their art.
More fascinating still: these pigments were prepared elsewhere, then transported into the cave. Traces of grinding workshops have been found in nearby rock shelters. Mortars, pestles, pigment remains. So the artists arrived equipped, with their tools and colors, ready to paint. This presupposes organization, planning, perhaps even specialization. Probably not all group members painted. Certain individuals, particularly gifted or initiated, took charge of this sacred task.
Lighting: painting in darkness
Close your eyes. Imagine the absolute darkness of a deep cave. Not a ray of light. Mineral silence. In these shadows, how to create works of such precision? The fat lamps discovered at Lascaux provide a beginning of an answer. These small stone basins – about a hundred have been counted – contained animal fat in which a plant wick was dipped.
Modern experiments have shown that such a lamp produces a stable, low-smoke flame, with an intensity equivalent to that of a candle. Its lighting duration reaches several hours. Its limited light radius creates areas of shadow and light, giving the paintings a living, almost animated appearance. The animals seem to emerge from darkness, plunge back in, return.
But now imagine an artist at work. He holds his lamp in one hand. With the other, he must draw, paint, blow the pigment. How to do it? Probably with several people. One lights, the other paints. Or you place the lamp on a rocky ledge, wedge its orientation, work in the circle of its light. This technical constraint perhaps explains certain peculiarities of cave art: the sure line, without pentimenti, because you see only imperfectly; flat areas of color, easier to achieve than complex modeling; the use of reliefs, which reveal themselves differently depending on the angle of lighting.
Some prehistorians go further. According to them, this twilight would not be a simple constraint, but an essential element of the symbolic device. Decorated caves would be places of mystery, where darkness itself has meaning. Descending into the cave means leaving the world of the living to enter that of spirits, ancestors, underground forces. The flickering lamplight only glimpses these powers, never fully revealing them. The prehistoric spectator experienced a multisensory experience: the cold of the cave, the humidity, the smell of burning fat, the oppressive silence, and suddenly, in the halo of light, the appearance of a colossal aurochs.
Lascaux and other caves: a network of masterpieces
Lascaux is not alone. In France and Spain, over 350 decorated caves are counted. Altamira, in northern Spain, discovered in 1879, rivals Lascaux in beauty and antiquity. Its polychrome bison, painted around 14,000 BCE, masterfully exploit the bumps on the ceiling to create an illusion of relief.
Chauvet, in the Ardèche, discovered in 1994, is even older: 36,000 years. Yes, you read that right: thirty-six thousand years. That's more than double the age of Lascaux. And yet, technical mastery is already total. Lions, rhinoceroses, bears, horses of stunning quality. This discovery overturned our conceptions: art does not progress linearly, from simple to complex. From its beginnings, it reaches a form of perfection.
Cosquer, an underwater cave near Marseille, accessible only by diving, preserves paintings 27,000 years old. Its entrance, now 37 meters below sea level, was on the coast during the last glaciation. Prehistoric artists represented penguins, seals, fish there – witnesses to a much colder climate.
Font-de-Gaume and Les Combarelles, near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, offer other Magdalenian wonders. Rouffignac, the "cave of a hundred mammoths," presents spectacular engravings of these extinct pachyderms. Niaux, in Ariège, houses the famous "Black Room," a gallery decorated with charcoal bison and ibex.
Each cave has its personality, its style, its favorite themes. At Lascaux, horses and aurochs dominate. At Chauvet, felines and rhinoceroses. At Font-de-Gaume, bison. Do these variations testify to cultural, chronological, symbolic differences? Or simply to local fauna, individual artistic inspiration? The debate continues.
The conservation drama: when love kills
Lascaux opens to the public. Attendance is immediate, massive. 100,000 visitors per year come to admire the millennia-old frescoes. To facilitate access, a staircase and electric lighting system are installed. Air conditioning is added. Amenities are made. And this is the beginning of the drama.
In 1955, the first signs appear. White spots bloom on the walls. Calcifications. The "white disease." Caused by carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors, by the humidity of their breath, by the heat of their bodies. The paintings, preserved for 17,000 years in a fragile balance, begin to deteriorate.
Officials react. Visits are limited, ventilation is improved, walls are treated. But in 1960, a new alert: green algae invade certain areas. The "green disease." Fed by artificial light and humidity, they proliferate, masking the paintings. The verdict falls in 1963: Lascaux must close to the public. Forever.
This heartbreaking decision saves the cave. Deprived of visitors, returned to darkness and silence, it gradually regains its balance. But the scars remain. Fungi, bacteria, algae remain dormant, ready to proliferate at the slightest imbalance. For sixty years, a team of scientists has monitored Lascaux daily. Temperature, hygrometry, air composition: everything is measured, analyzed, controlled.
In 2001, a new crisis. A fungus invades the cave: Fusarium solani. A lightning invasion threatening the paintings. Panic in the scientific world. Where does it come from? How to eradicate it without damaging the works? Treatments are tested, applied, monitored. Gradually, the threat recedes. But the lesson is clear: Lascaux remains vulnerable, in permanent danger.
Lascaux II, III, IV: cloning the masterpiece
Since we can no longer visit the real cave, why not recreate it? This is the crazy bet launched in the 1970s. Lascaux II, a facsimile of the Hall of Bulls and the Axial Gallery, opens in 1983, 200 meters from the original. The result is stunning. Every relief, every crack, every painting has been reproduced with astounding accuracy.
How? First, a millimetric photogrammetric survey of the original cave. Then, a resin molding of the walls. Finally, the reproduction of paintings by Monique Peytral, an artist trained in prehistoric techniques. She spent five years painting, using the same natural pigments, the same gestures as the Magdalenian artists. The result? An emotion almost identical to that of the real cave.
Lascaux II now welcomes 300,000 visitors per year. But only 90% of the original cave can be reproduced there. Hence Lascaux III, a traveling exhibition inaugurated in 2012, which allows Chicago, Montreal, Seoul to discover Lascaux. And especially Lascaux IV, an ultramodern interpretation center opened in 2016 in Montignac.
Lascaux IV does not simply reproduce the paintings. It's a total immersive experience. You enter a semi-buried building designed by Norwegian architect Snøhetta. You descend gradually, symbolically, towards the depths. You enter the complete facsimile of the cave – 900 m² of reproductions to the nearest millimeter. Then you explore a high-tech museum space: augmented reality, touch screens, 3D reconstructions.
The ambition? To allow everyone to experience the emotion of Lascaux while preserving the original. A successful bet. Lascaux IV welcomes 400,000 visitors per year, becoming one of the major tourist sites of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Irony of history: the facsimile attracts more people than the original ever received.
The artists of Lascaux: who were they?
Who painted Lascaux? The question seems naive, but it is fundamental. Behind these frescoes hide individuals, flesh-and-blood humans. What do we know about them? Few things, but some troubling clues.
First, their number. The handprints noted on the walls belong to several individuals, children and adults. Some are real hands placed on the rock, then outlined with blown pigment – "negative hands." Others are "positive hands," obtained by applying a hand coated with color to the support. These traces suggest a collective, perhaps ritual practice.
Next, their technical mastery. Painting a 5-meter-long aurochs while respecting proportions, on a curved wall, by the light of a flickering lamp, without visible preliminary sketch, is virtuosity. These artists had perfect anatomical knowledge, a sure hand, an exceptional sense of composition. Were they specialists, recognized and respected within the group? Probably.
Finally, their mobility. The same styles, the same techniques are found in several caves hundreds of kilometers apart. Some prehistorians evoke "schools," traditions transmitted from generation to generation, from site to site. Did artists travel, spreading their knowledge? Were there apprentices, trained by masters? The similarities between Lascaux and certain Pyrenean caves argue in this direction.
Lascaux in contemporary imagination
Lascaux has crossed the boundaries of archaeology to become a cultural icon. Picasso, visiting the cave in 1940 (apocryphal version, as he never went there, but the legend persists), allegedly declared: "We have invented nothing." This phrase – true or false – summarizes modern artists' fascination with cave art.
Dubuffet, Miró, Braque, Hartung: all claimed this prehistoric affiliation. Art brut, abstract expressionism, primitivism draw from these millennia-old sources. Lascaux proves that art and sophistication do not necessarily rhyme with urban civilization. Paleolithic hunter-gatherers possessed a spiritual and artistic life of unsuspected richness.
In literature, Lascaux inspires poets and novelists. Georges Bataille devoted an impassioned essay to it in 1955: "Lascaux or the Birth of Art." For the philosopher, these paintings mark the emergence of human consciousness, the moment when man, ceasing to be a simple animal, becomes a creator of beauty. A romantic vision, certainly, but one that says something about our need for founding myths.
In cinema, Werner Herzog made "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" in 2010, a 3D documentary on Chauvet. Fascinated by these "cathedrals of deep time," he questions our relationship with our ancestors, with artistic creation, with the permanence of works. For this is indeed the miracle of Lascaux: 17,000 years later, these images still speak to us.
New technologies in service of Lascaux
The 21st century offers unprecedented tools to study and preserve Lascaux. 3D photogrammetry allows the entire cave to be digitized with millimetric precision. These virtual models serve both conservation (we can compare the state of walls from year to year) and dissemination (virtual visits, reproductions).
Spectrometric analysis reveals the exact composition of pigments. We can now identify not only the nature of the mineral, but also its geological origin. Some ochres come from deposits located several tens of kilometers away. Proof that artists did not just randomly collect pigments, but sought specific qualities.
Carbon-14 dating, applied to charcoal used for drawing, confirms the age of Lascaux: between 18,000 and 17,000 years before our era, during the Magdalenian period. But beware: this date only concerns charcoal figures. Ochre paintings, inorganic minerals, cannot be dated directly. They are attributed to the same period by stylistic association, but nothing proves they were not created over several centuries.
Artificial intelligence also enters the dance. Algorithms analyze superimpositions of lines, attempt to distinguish different "hands," identify technical gestures. A recent study suggests that at least three different artists would have worked in the Hall of Bulls, identifiable by their own style. One favored thick black outlines, another flat areas of color, the third subtle gradients.
Why does Lascaux still fascinate us?
Ultimately, what does Lascaux tell us? That 17,000 years ago, humans anatomically identical to us felt the need to create. Not for utilitarian reasons – these paintings serve no purpose. Not to decorate their habitat – they lived in rock shelters, not in these deep caves. But to express something. A worldview. A relationship to the sacred. A quest for beauty.
These Magdalenian artists possessed neither metallurgy, nor agriculture, nor writing. But they had fat lamps, makeshift brushes, carefully prepared pigments. And above all, they had imagination, aesthetic sense, the will to leave a mark. This mark, against all odds, has survived. How many Renaissance works have disappeared? How many nineteenth-century masterpieces are lost? Lascaux is still there.
This permanence moves us. It connects us to our most distant ancestors. It proves that art is not a luxury of rich and idle civilizations, but a fundamental human need. The men of Lascaux lived in a hostile environment, subject to glacial cold, predation, hunger. Yet they took the time to descend into a cave, light lamps, paint giant aurochs. Why? Perhaps simply because that's what makes us human.
Lascaux also reminds us of our fragility. These paintings survived 17,000 years in darkness and silence. A few years of public exposure nearly destroyed them. We are capable of creating beauty, but also of annihilating it. The closure of the cave in 1963 was an act of wisdom, rare in these times of mass cultural consumption. Renouncing seeing to preserve. Accepting distance to protect. A lesson our era struggles to learn.
Visiting Lascaux today: user's guide
If you want to "visit" Lascaux, head to Montignac, in the Dordogne. The real cave is closed, inaccessible to the public. Only a few researchers, a few days a year, still penetrate it for conservation missions. For us, mere mortals, three options are available.
Lascaux II, the first facsimile, is located 200 meters from the original cave. Open since 1983, it reproduces 90% of the paintings (Hall of Bulls and Axial Gallery). Visits are guided, limited to 30 people every 30 minutes. The atmosphere is authentic, almost intimate. You feel the attention to detail, the love of the place. Price: about 13 euros.
Lascaux IV, the international center for cave art, inaugurated in 2016, offers a complete experience. First, the full reproduction of the cave – 900 m² instead of 250 m² for Lascaux II. Then, an interactive museum tour: augmented reality workshops, 3D cinema, temporary exhibitions. Allow 2 to 3 hours for the visit. Price: about 16 euros (adult), 10 euros (child).
Lascaux III, a traveling exhibition, circulates around the world. It has already been presented in Canada, the United States, Korea, Japan, Switzerland. Life-size reproductions of five major scenes, made by the same artists as Lascaux II. A way to bring Lascaux to all corners of the globe.
But Lascaux is only a gateway to the Vézère valley, nicknamed the "Valley of Man." Within a 30-kilometer radius, you'll find Font-de-Gaume (still open, but for how long?), Les Combarelles, Rouffignac, Le Cap Blanc, and about twenty other prehistoric sites. The National Museum of Prehistory, in Les Eyzies, offers a fascinating synthesis on the Paleolithic. Enough to spend a whole week immersed in deep time.
Lascaux, world heritage
In 1979, Lascaux was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Ultimate recognition of its exceptional universal value. But also responsibility. Lascaux does not belong to France. It belongs to all humanity. Its preservation engages us all.
This universal dimension shines through in public reactions. Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world come to Montignac. Japanese, Americans, Brazilians, Chinese: all leave overwhelmed. Because Lascaux speaks a universal language. No need for translation, scholarly explanation. Beauty is self-sufficient. An aurochs is an aurochs, whatever your culture.
Yet the mystery remains. After a century of studies, we still don't really know why these men painted. Hunting magic? Too simple. Art for art's sake? Anachronistic. Shamanism? Seductive but unverifiable. The truth probably mixes these explanations and others we don't even suspect. Lascaux keeps its secrets.
And perhaps that's better. If we understood everything, the charm would be broken. Mystery is part of the work. It feeds our imagination, stimulates our curiosity, forces us to humility. Faced with these millennia-old aurochs, we measure our ignorance. We, who believe ourselves so learned, so modern, so advanced, remain amazed children before the depth of time.
Lascaux reminds us where we come from. From those hunter-gatherers who roamed glacial steppes, followed reindeer herds, took refuge in rock shelters. But who, between two hunts, found time to create. To transform rock into a mirror of their dreams. To dialogue with spirits. To leave a mark that, against all odds, still reaches us, intact, overwhelming, mysterious. The mysteries of the Lascaux cave paintings will probably never be fully elucidated. And that's good. Because in this mystery lies the magic, the emotion, the part of eternity that makes Lascaux much more than an archaeological site: a sanctuary of humanity.
