In December 1994, three potholers made a remarkable discovery: a hitherto unknown Palaeolithic painted cave, located in the Ardeche, far from the main concentration of French cave art in the Dordogne.
In most painted caves, bison and horses are the main subjects - but in the Grotte Chauvet (named after one of its discoverers), dangerous beasts predominate. As well as the more common mammoth and horses, numerous rhinos and lions, rarely depicted in cave art and then often in the most inaccessible places, are shown throughout this cave.
These magnificent creatures have been found to be an astonishing 30,000 years old, the charcoal used to draw them and the marks of the torches held while they were being drawn having been dated by radiocarbon.
The dates have also revealed that the paintings were executed at intervals over a long period and were often touched up: clearly it was thought important to keep the image visible.
