Word: lascaux
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...markings as "characteristic of the Stone Age.'' What he did not immediately realize-and the world did not know until the French Culture Ministry announced it last week-was that they had discovered an archaeological trove that may rival even the fabled drawings on the cave walls at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. The spelunkers had found an extraordinarily clear window on prehistoric life...
Photographs of the Stone Age art show images of lions, bison, deer, bears, horses and some 50 woolly rhinos. "These paintings are more beautiful than those in Lascaux," says Patrice Baghain, the regional head of cultural affairs. "There is a sense of rhythm and texture that is truly remarkable." One mural shows several horses apparently charging-in a Stone Age mismatch-toward two rhinos...
Stung by lessons learned at Altamira and Lascaux, where initial unrestricted access to the caves obliterated archaeological clues and led to the rapid deterioration of artwork, the French Culture Ministry has put the Chauvet cave off limits to all but a handful of experts and installed video surveillance cameras and police guards at the entrance. "Our goal," says Baghain, "is to keep the cave in this virgin state so that research can, in theory, continue indefinitely...
More than 300 paintings were discovered late last year in a cave near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in southern France, the French government has revealed. Experts say the 20,000-year-old gallery may surpass the famous grottoes at Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain. The cavern was said to be perfectly intact, with animal bones, flint knives and even footprints preserved on the floor...
...Basques of France and Spain. They show unusual patterns for several genes, including the highest rate of the Rh-negative blood type. Their language is of unknown origin and cannot be placed within any standard classification. And the fact that they live in the region adjoining the famous Lascaux and Altamira caves, which contain vivid paintings from Europe's early hunter- gatherers, leads Cavalli-Sforza to a tantalizing conclusion: "The Basques are extremely likely to be the most direct descendants of the Cro-Magnon people, among the first modern humans in Europe." All Europeans are thought to be a hybrid...