lascaux background

17,500 years ago, in what is now the Dordogne region of France, the Ice Age hunters of the Würm Glaciation period created the prehistoric masterpiece of Lascaux.

In a darkness pierced only by feeble fat lamps, and using a pallet of ground local minerals, they recorded the herds of the ice on the walls of the sanctuary. Many of these animals, now known as "Mega Fauna," became extinct with the retreat of the ice sheets, and Lascaux has become a unique record of early Mans symbiosis with these amazing creatures.

Mammoth, saber cats, bison and a primitive species of horse were painted with breathtaking skill, using the natural mass of the living rock to add a remarkable third dimension to the paintings. Two animals, however, dominate the walls of the cave: the Megaceros Deer and the famous Lascaux Bulls.

Now both extinct, they must have seemed as magical as they were terrifying. Fossil antlers of the Megaceros have a span of twelve feet and weighed up to 200 pounds, suggesting an animal of over 1,500 pounds and standing eight feet at the shoulder, and has been called "the most magnificent antlered animal ever to walk the earth". The Aurochs Bull was an awesome 3,000 pound animal at the center of the lives of the Paleolithic hunters, and was the ancestor of most breeds of domestic oxen and fighting bulls. Julius Caesar wrote about seeing one of the last surviving Aurochs trapped in a Hercynian forest, and described it as "the same shape as a bull, in size not much smaller than an elephant, very strong and a fast runner".

It is humbling to think that these animals were hunted in temperatures of - 40 degrees Centigrade with flint spears weighing only five pounds.

Yet Lascaux is far more than just a gallery or even a prehistoric cathedral. I believe that I can make a case that the "Hall of the Bulls" is an ancient star map that can be used to mark the arrival of the Summer Solstice.

To the right are the setting stars of midsummer dusk: Pleiades, Taurus, and Orion and to the far left, the rising constellations of the following dawn: Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius, all outlined by various bulls, horses, and deer. A natural opening at the furthest part of the cave represented the position of the last possible sighting of the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, before it is lost in the glare of the Solstice twilight. By watching the sky and matching its patterns to the cave, the mark of the Solstice could be measured to within a week. This would literally have been life and death information to hunters relying on the seasonal migrations of the herds, and a valuable signal that the days of the brief Ice Age 'summer' from now on get shorter.