‘M. le Président retrace l'historique des visites faites par différents personnages à la grotte de Rouffignac depuis Le XVIᵉ siècle et signale un récit anonyme de 1559 non encore publié, qui mentionne des “figures d'hommes et d'animaux”’.1
This post is the continuation of: The Art of not seeing prehistoric cave art.
As mentioned in a previous post the first published reference to the Rouffignac cave-art dates back to François de Belleforets’ (1575) La Cosmographie universelle de tout le monde. He did not visit the cave but writes that ‘… those who enter there recount great wonders’. He might have had access to one of the forty or so persons that explored the cave on the 12th of July 1559. Among them members of the local clergy carving crosses into representations of unknown ‘diabolical animals associated with pre-Christian pagan cults’.
It was not until the 26th June 1956 that the potential archaeological value of the cave was recognized. A whole new controversy erupted over the authenticity of the art. Ironically, traces left by the 1559 visit came to aid in validation. A cross carved into a mammoth in 1559 does not prove it is thousands of years old, but then… who knew about mammoths at that time? And some very specific anatomical details are striking and clearly visible in the representations. It was not until 1901, with the discovery of the Berezovka Mammoth in Siberia, that the ‘anal flap’ (piece of skin protecting against the cold as it still does for present-day musk-oxen) was rediscovered.
In 1957 Rouffignac became a listed site and opened (as an archaeological attraction) to the public in 1959. A lot of research has been done since then, and a lot has been published. The Rouffignac Cave website2 has an impressive biography page with some 130 references, many providing direct access to publications. They are a testament to the amount of time, (brain) power and money that’s been allocated to unraveling these ice-age enigmas. Rouffignac is one of the five caves Christine Desdemaines-Hugon3 recommends visiting to get a good idea of the diversity of paleolithic cave art.
The Rouffignac Cave is huge, a total of 10 kilometers of tunnels spread over three levels. Most of the cave-art is found in 2 of the 6 kilometers on the upper level, the lowest level harbors a active stream. The levels are connected by a few vertical shafts or wells, one being at the center of the ‘great ceiling’ (Le Grand Plafond) . To help visitors travel the distance (and avoid falling into wells or getting lost) an electric train was used from the beginning. This has also limited the impact and damage so many of the caves suffered once opened to the public. Visitor numbers are regulated, when the train is full there is no more access. The train carries a light, leaving the cave dark most of the time.
Known as the ‘hundred mammoths cave’, with its 159 mammoths Rouffignac is home to over half the worlds known ice-age representations. The caves feature drawing in manganese, and engravings made with silex, bone, wood and (were the walls were soft) finger flutings (approximately 500m² of them). Except for the mammoths, there are 29 bison, 16 horses, 12 ibexes, 11 rhinoceroses, 1 bear, 4 humans and 16 tectiforms. The entrance is wide open and houses the ticket counter, souvenir shop and a permanent exhibition. From there you walk through a steel door towards the small narrow gauge electric train.
To test the visitors the lights go out and the train enters the tunnel, after a few minutes the guide checks to see if everyone is fine. It happened several times we headed back to let claustrophobic or otherwise uncomfortable passengers off. That taken care of, the remaining visitors set out for about a kilometer through the pitch black, only to stop and look at a piece of wall. I have visited 5 times, and it never ceases to amaze me how an engraved mammoth appears once the light moves. Time faded the carved lines back to color of the walls, but with the moving light the traces produce shadows that make the animal stand-out and move.
Some visitors are disappointed to find the engravings and drawings are not the poly-chrome paintings of Font-de-Gaume (or Lascaux), others found them much easier to distinguish compared to the often smudgy and faded figures of Font-de-Gaume. The train makes a number of stops to explore drawings and engravings left and right. Coming to a halt, visitors are invited to get off the train to walk towards the gallery known as the Le Grand Plafond probably the inner sanctum of this voie sacrée.
Claude Barrière (1980)4 analyzed the ensemble of 66 figures that constitute Le Grand Plafond. He started by noticing the topography; a slippy slope towards a 7 meter deep well that provides access to the lower level tunnels and gallery (now safely shielded by a low wall). This is not the easiest place to work, most of the ceiling was too low to get a good overview, some of the ceiling needed scaffolding to reach, and more wooden beams had to be dragged all the way here to cover the well while working.
At first glance the 66 figures appear random, with many different animals going in all directions tangled and overlapping each other. The ceiling can only be seen as a whole from the bottom of the well. From that position a circle, open towards the well, appears to form an oméga shape. With half the circle formed by horses, and the other half by ibex (bouquetins), diagonally a large horse and a large ibex, the other diagonal smaller ones. Two rhinoceros move through the center, and a number of animals moving at the base.
Finger flutings
An artist makes a fluting by sweeping his or her fingers across a soft surface. They are variously referred to as serpentines, meanders, macaroni or water signs. The technique is found in caves throughout southwestern Europe, southern Australia, and New Guinea. With approximately 500m²of flutings, nearly all in excellent condition, Rouffignac Cave has become a center for their study.5
Detailed (laser) measurement and analysis (examining the junctions, cross-sections, depth, width, shape of lines as they intersect and buildup of material and striations within lines) determines the order in which flutings were made and distinguishing different artist. Through careful analyses it is possible to determine the gender, age class, use of right hand versus left hand and direction.
Distinctions are made between animal made lines, stick/bone lines, and finger fluted lines. Four forms of flutings were named; based on whether or not the fluter used one finger or multiple fingers, and whether or not the fluting was the product of lower body motion or standing still. Analysis of one of the highly fluted ceilings indicated that children were likely held up in certain sections to flute the higher parts of the ceiling. So far a child (likely younger than 4), two girls (including a tectiform), one man and three woman (including a tectiform) have been identified as distinct artists.
The capacity to recognize distinct individuals, their fluting styles, patterns, and choices of location has led to questions related to purpose and meaning. Noticing the apparent ‘orderliness’ of the lines leads to the question whether or not they have culturally encoded communication within their form. Zipf’s Law is used in a wide variety of contexts to determine what is recognizable communication among members of a group or species and what is ‘noise’. When Zipf’s Law was applied to two panels in Rouffignac, the results suggested ‘a form of recognizable, efficient communication’.
NB. Photography by visitors is not allowed in the Rouffignac Caves (fortunately); illustrations were made by combining images from various websites.
‘Mr. President recounts the history of the visits made by various characters to the Rouffignac cave since the 16th century and reports an anonymous account of 1759 that has not yet been published, which mentions “figures of men and animals”’.
Bulletin de la Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord. Tome CVIII - Année 1981 (p. 182) . Accessible through; shap.fr website.
http://www.grottederouffignac.fr/
Desdemaines-Hugon C., 2010. Stepping-Stones: A Journey through the Ice Age Caves of the Dordogne. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18802-8
Barrière C., 1980. Le Grand Plafond de Rouffignac. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, tome 77, n°9, 1980. pp. 269-276. Accessible through Persée.
Gelder van L., 2010. Ten years in Rouffignac Cave: a collective report on findings from a decade of finger flutings research. In: Clottes J. (dir.), 2012. — L’art pléistocène dans le monde / Pleistocene art of the world / Arte pleistoceno en el mundo. Actes du Congrès IFRAO, Tarascon-sur-Ariège, septembre 2010 – Symposium « Art pléistocène en Europe » Accessible through; L’Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès.