CAVE CHAUVET 2 ARDÈCHE

On the heights of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc is one of the heritage and tourist jewels of the department. It is not the Chauvet cave itself that awaits you here, but its replica, whose construction was initiated in 2012. The site, which opened its doors to the public in 2015 in the presence of President François Hollande, is housed in an ultra modern building. 3,000^m2 of floors and 8,000^m2 of vaults and walls of the Chauvet cave have been reproduced in all their diversity. This unique project of unprecedented scope was made possible by the use of thousands of digital photos representing the geological elements of the cave, the paintings and engravings that adorn its walls and the archaeological remains that have been discovered there.

The Chauvet cave, considered a unique example of man's creative genius and a witness to a vanished human culture, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014. Its discovery is relatively recent (especially when you know its ancestral origins!), since it dates back to 1994. On December 18 of that year, three amateur cavers who had already made discoveries in the region, Eliette Brunel, Christian Hillaire and Jean-Marie Chauvet, decided to explore a diverticulum in the Ardèche Gorge. The opening was already known, but only a few meters of this gut which seemed to lead nowhere had been explored until then. After having opened the conduit, obstructed by massive scree, the cavers overhang a large void: with the help of a flexible ladder, they continue their progression and, ten meters lower, reach an immense gallery. By the light of their headlamps, they discover a real geological palace and see countless bear bones. In order not to trample the grounds and damage the invaluable geological and archaeological vestiges inviolated for thousands of years, they go along the walls and discover then that these are decorated with paleolithic figures.

The discovery of this cave will be announced a few weeks later but, for obvious reasons of preservation, the cave itself will never be opened to the public. The idea is not to reproduce the mistakes that led to the degradation of the Lascaux cave, invaded by tourists between 1948 and 1963. Each year, only a hundred or so privileged people, mainly researchers, can enter this sanctuary of human history. The cave takes the name of one of its inventors, Jean-Marc Chauvet, who insisted with his two comrades to undertake the exploration of the opening.

It is an exceptional discovery in more ways than one: the Chauvet cave is the oldest decorated cave in the world, but it is also in a remarkable state of preservation. It has been estimated that its paintings and engravings date back to the Paleolithic era, about 35,000 years before our time. It would thus be the first masterpiece of the humanity! The richness and abundance of representations also contribute to make the Chauvet cave an absolutely unique place: the site includes a thousand paintings and engravings, often staged in frescoes. The animals (mammoth, horse, rhinoceros, lion ...) hold a central place in this cave art, while human representations remain very allusive: no man or woman is represented in its entirety.

The visit is made in two times. You discover the monumental replica of the cave of the Chauvet cave, a jewel of cave art, with lighting, olfactory and visual special effects to create a striking atmosphere. It is the largest reconstruction site of its kind in the world, and everything is done so that we feel the same emotions as those that went through the three cavers who discovered the cave. For maximum realism, the colors and patterns of the cave paintings have been reproduced by hand, with the same wood pigments and charcoal as our ancestors. Apart from the paintings and engravings, we wander between animal bones, footprints, stalactite pillars, calcite ridges, remains of bear caves... Everything is there, even the smell of wet limestone, the temperature and the humidity level. This remarkable restitution allows us to dive into the marvels of the art of our ancestors, and allows us to get acquainted with an exceptional prehistoric bestiary.

In a second time, the gallery of the Aurignacian invites you to discover the daily life and the environment of our Ardèche ancestors. On the program: an immersive film, tactile terminals, the discovery of the naturalized animals which populated the territory of the cave 36 000 years ago. Hunters-collectors and semi-nomads, the Aurignacians lived in symbiosis with nature, in the middle of a megafauna: mammoths, cave lions, bears, megaceroses, woolly rhinoceroses, steppe bisons... Six large animals and five humans, including a child, are life size, are staged. Fascinating! And outside, animations await you. You also have on the site a store with books on prehistory and objects on the theme and a bar-restaurant with menu or snacking. And moreover you can enjoy the wild environment of the Razal plateau, on the heights of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc.