A new research program at Font de Gaume cave (Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France)

Abstract

In the early 20th century, the Font-de-Gaume cave contributed to the official and definitive recognition of Paleolithic cave art. Its renown stems from the quality of its engraved, drawn and painted works, sometimes in polychrome, as well as the majesty and parietal integration of its bison, mammoths, horses, reindeer, deer, ibex, aurochs, rhinoceroses, indeterminate animals and more, arranged in long processions on the walls of the main gallery, after the Rubicon, and of the terminal diverticulum, amassed on the voussoirs of the bison cabinet, or scattered at the crossroads and in the first few metres of the side gallery. But have these images, made world-famous by the masterly monograph and large picture book by Louis Capitan, Henri Breuil and Denis Peyrony published in 1910, been hiding a forest of parietal symbols for over a century, the immensity and richness of which are still unsuspected? To answer this question, an interdisciplinary research program led by the author of these lines was launched in 2020. Little by little, it is revealing the unique and original personality of an ultimately unknown cave.