Lascaux Cave, << las KOH, >> is a site in southwest France famous for the spectacular prehistoric paintings and engravings on its walls. Archaeologists have determined that the paintings were made around 17,000 years ago by people of the Magdalenian culture. This culture existed in western Europe during a time in the late Stone Age known as the Upper Paleolithic. The site was discovered in 1940.
The site consists of a huge underground complex of caves stretching about 820 feet (250 meters) in total length. Its seven main chambers feature about 600 paintings and about 1,500 engravings. Most of them show animals, including wild horses, deer, aurochs (a kind of extinct wild ox), and ibexes. Other images show abstract figures, such as dots and four-sided shapes.
The painters and engravers at Lascaux Cave were skilled artists. They used natural pigments (coloring materials), such as charcoal, manganese, calcite, and red and yellow ocher. The artists purposefully distorted images drawn on the cave ceiling so that they appeared normal when viewed from the ground, an artistic technique called anamorphosis. Prehistoric people may have used the cave for special rituals, but archaeologists do not think people lived in the cave.
See also Chauvet Cave.
