Cussac Cave
Click on the photos to see an enlarged version
The Cussac Cave may be 28 000 years old. Its walls are covered with engravings of horses, people, deer, mammoths, rhinoceroses and strange long snouted beasts, and a bison four metres long. It was discovered in September 2000 by speleologist Marc Delluc, who was prospecting for caves in the Buisson-de-Cadouin area of the Dordogne.
A general view of Cussac Cave
Photo: Dr Norbert Aujoulat, from the website
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cara13/web/cussac.html
Mammoth engraving with hair.
Photo: Dr Norbert Aujoulat, from the website
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cara13/web/cussac.html
Human skeleton in a cave bear wallow.
Photo: Dr Norbert Aujoulat, from the website
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cara13/web/cussac.html
Horse engravings.
Photo: Dr Norbert Aujoulat, from the website
http://www.chez.com/suriyakantha/Archive8.htm
Venus of Cussac
Photo: REUTERS/CNP-Ministry of Culture from the website
http://www.cuevadelapileta.org/descubrir_archivos/venusfrancia.html
Bison and horse
Photo: from the website
http://www.rotskunst.nl/cussac.htm
The cave has walls 12 metres high, and is one kilometre long. In places the walls are covered with engravings. The exact location is being kept secret, and the cave will never be open to the public. More than 100 engraved figures have been identified in the cave. There are birds as well as women in silhouette, and schematic vulva depictions.
Human skeletons have also been found on the cave's floor, and in a wallow - bears had occupied the cave at some period - there was a human skeleton.
The engravings are in excellent condition. More than 150 incised drawings have been found so far, along with four burial sites filled with bones from seven humans, says prehistorian Norbert Aujoulat of the National Center for Prehistory in Périgueux, who heads the research team. The images are cut unusually deep into the relatively soft cave walls, making them more vivid than most cave art.
The cave floor is of clay, and the limestone walls are unstable, and are susceptible to temperature changes, and easily flake away.
There is a high level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the cave, and scientists can only spend three hours at most in the cave before returning to the surface for fresh air.
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1423021.stm
http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/Cussac.htm
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/france.html
http://bric.postech.ac.kr/science/97now/01_7now/010713b.html
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cara13/web/cussac.html
This page last modified Monday 13 December 2004
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