Over 30,000 years ago, in a limestone cave in the Ardèche region of southern France, Paleolithic artists painted horses, rhinoceroses, lions, bears and mammoths with astonishing skill, using charcoal and red ochre and the contours of the rock to give the animals depth. Three speleologists, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire, found the cave on 18 December 1994 and it was sealed to protect it. Radiocarbon dates show that the art was made in two periods, about 36,000 and 30,000 years ago, showing that fully developed artistic traditions existed very early in Europe.
Before and after
- from about 50,000 years ago to 2nd millenniumPre-Columbian era
- from about 50,000 years ago to 9,726 years agoUpper Paleolithic
- about 41,000 years agoNeanderthals disappear from Europe
- from about 40,000 years ago to 31,000 years agoAurignacian
- about 36,100 years agoChauvet cave paintings are made
- about 30,100 years agoThe Venus of Willendorf is carved
- about 23,100 years agoPeople are already in North America
- about 21,000 years agoLast Glacial Maximum
- about 20,000 years agoThe earliest known pottery is made in China
More in Art, literature & culture
- 6th millennium BCEOrigins of Indian religions
- from c. 3,250 BCE to 400 CEEgyptian hieroglyphs
- 6th century BCEOrigins of Judaism
- 1469Origins of Sikhism
- 10 November 1517Origins of Protestantism
- from 1960 to 1970The Beatles
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.