Font-de-Gaume
Font de Gaume is a cave - in area of municipal Les Eyzies -de- Tayac- Sireuil in the Dordogne. With its numerous polychrome cave paintings dating from the Magdalenian it is among the most important caves in the Franco-Cantabrian cave art images. At the same time Font de Gaume - is the last publicly accessible cave with polychrome painting from the Upper Paleolithic.
Geographical location, geology and description of the cave
The cave is located about one kilometer east of Les Eyzies in the Font -de- Gaume, a left tributary of the Beune shortly before its confluence with the Vézère. A 500 meter long and 40 meter high cliff of flat-lying, sandy limestones of Coniaciums, overlain by Santonian, dominates the right side of the Font du Gaume. In this panel, the cave has formed by internal erosion formation, with water infiltrations followed prescribed fault zones in the rock and the lime weglösten. The cave is now regarded as relatively "dry", are also occasionally encountered when sintered parts.
The cave is located half wall height around 250 meters behind the Talmündung (on the third alluvial fans ). She can be reached via an upstream Abri, which was developed in the Middle Ages and at the rear end there are two inputs. The left input is a dummy transition that ends after a few meters. The right entrance leads into the cave itself. This more or less straight, 2-3 meter wide corridor is 125 meters long and follows southeasterly direction. He reached up to 8 meters in height. From it branch off three right side passages, one of which leads back to the surface. The first two page transitions are relatively insignificant, the third, perpendicular branching side gear is at least 50 feet long.
Most of the images and engravings appears 60 yards in the second half of the main course. The images begin just before a Rubicon mentioned bottleneck and can then follow to the end of the corridor on. Some were carried out in the second and especially the third side corridor. The throat has undoubtedly helped to reduce air circulation in the rear gear section drastically; It follows that it preserves the works of art from destruction, as it was on the first 60 meters, just unfortunately not the case.
History
The cave has long been known among the locals, as can be seen several, partly acting disfiguring graffiti unique. However, only in 1901 the teacher of Les Eyzies, Denis Peyrony was aware of the petroglyphs, after he had been recently involved in the discovery of Combarelles. He agreed immediately Louis Capitan and Henri Breuil, who confirmed his finding. Breuil then made to some in color Pauszeichnungen, which appeared in 1910 in a monograph. 1966 again a large frieze was exposed with 5 bison, after the wall at this point had been freed from a chalky - clay coating.
Excavations at the cave were performed by Peyrony and Breuil and later by F. Prat 1958-1964 and again in 1967.
Pictures
In Font-de - Gaume are located on the 200 illustrations. Predominant are here clearly the bison, in contrast to the cave of Combarelles, in a dominant position, the wild horses, and the cave of Rouffignac with a predominance of mammoths. The representations can be according to Henri Breuil broken down as follows:
- 80 bison
- 40 wild horses
- 23 mammoths
- 17 reindeer and cervids
- 8 aurochs
- 4 goat -like
- 2 woolly rhinos
- 2 big cats
- 1 Wolf
- 1 bear
Among the animals represented only a single human being, some vulvas were indicated. As a special feature appears a lion. Next to the pictures and characters are present, including 19 tektiforme ( house -shaped ) characters, rectangles, and X - shaped sign and 4 Hand negatives.
The petroglyphs are of excellent quality and have been exported two or more colors. Used were mainly red and black natural colors that have been dusted or inflated. Most first the outline of the represented animal was carved into the wall and then configured in color. Irregularities in the rock were sent exploited to give the illustrations a spatial dimension.
The animals are not randomly arranged. Occasionally they were in pairs, mounted consecutively or staggered. Some animals also occupy a preferred position, for example, is dominated by a high up shown on the wall Wolf the turnoff to the third side corridor.
Age
Absolute age determinations are not available for Font de Gaume -. Stylistic studies and overlays on single figures give reason to believe that the art works are attributed to at least two cultural epochs. The older phase is likely to be done in about the same time with the pictures of Lascaux, ie Lower Magdalenian or older. The younger phase probably belongs to the Upper Magdalenian, coinciding with the plants in Combarelles, Bernifal and Rouffignac.
Artifact finds
Mainly burin, scraper and blades - - Excavations stone artifacts made of flint were in the cave and other items discovered. The tool finds originate mainly from the Châtelperronian and the Aurignacian, and partly from the Solutrean and Magdalenian and may even date back to the Mousterian. Let the relatively sparse findings suggest that the cave had been visited only briefly, but was never permanently inhabited.
Importance
Font de Gaume - is one of the last major caves with rock paintings in France, which is still open to the public. The illustrations in it are quite comparable with those of Altamira or Lascaux, even if their conservation status is clearly worse.
World Heritage Site by UNESCO
Since 1979, Font-de - Gaume is in conjunction with other sites of Vézèretals World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Visit
The cave is open to the public, the number of visitors but are tightly regulated. Thanks to this measure, the art works are now in a stable state (as opposed to Lascaux ). Groups of visitors will be limited to 12 participants. The site is managed by the monuments nationaux Centre ( center of national cultural monuments ).
More caves near Font de Gaume -
The Font-de - Gaume Valley can boast two more caves. Thus, located 900 meters south of the cave Cournazac, which was found only in 1976. In addition to a painted mammoth several engravings and some, drawn with the fingers contours can be recognized. A little further south is the cave of Peyreblanque with residual traces of rock art. The slightly upriver Located on the Grande Beune cave of Les Girouteaux contains unidentifiable engravings.