US EditionFirst Absolute Dating of Paleolithic Paintings in the Dordogne
7 Articles
7 Articles
First absolute dating of Paleolithic paintings in the Dordogne
A research team led by a CNRS researcher has for the first time accurately determined the age of the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume (Les Eyzies) in Dordogne (southwestern France), according to a study published on March 9, 2026, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The CNRS researcher Ina Reiche explains how these drawings, made with coal and not with iron oxides and manganese as we thought, question our prehistoric knowledge of the region and open the door to a dating of these works.
Classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Font-de-Gaume aux Eyzies Cave is one of the jewels of parietal art.
A surprising discovery in Font-de-Gaume reveals the use of charcoal, allowing precise dating of works and questioning the previous estimates Thanks to the use of
Thanks to a new approach, CNRS researchers detected charcoal in the pigments of the Font-de-Gaume cave. This discovery made it possible to date paleolithic paintings for the first time, revealing ages spanning thousands of years and opening new perspectives for the study of prehistory.
A team led by a researcher from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) has achieved a milestone in prehistoric archaeology by confirming by absolute dating the age of several parietal representations of the Font-de-Gaume cave, located in Dordogne, France. The results, which are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy [...]
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