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The Lascaux
cave was discovered in 1940 by four teenagers. The cave is located in the
Bordeaux region of France on the river Vézère. The Lascaux cave was discovered
in 1940 by four teenagers. There are more than 100 Paleolithic caves in
the region.
- The Lescaux cave is rich with things to discover. Each section of the cave has
unique and fascinating depictions. Look at the map of the cave with your students.
Separate your class into teams of cave explorers. Each team will learn about and report on their section
of the cave.
The sections of the Lascaux cave:
•The Painted Gallery
•The Great Hall of the Bulls
•The Chamber of Felines
•The Chamber of Engravings
•The Main Gallery
•The Shaft of the Dead Man
Ask each team to work on one section of a guidebook to the cave, which will include drawings,
photographs from Web sites, and highlights written by the students of each section of the cave.
- The cave drawings in the Lascaux cave originate from the prehistoric era — 15,000 to 13,000 BCE.
The many paintings, drawings, and engravings give us insight into the world of these early people.
Many of the cave images are of animals such as bulls, bison, and horses. This is very significant, as these early
people were hunters. They relied on animals for food, for life itself. These drawings tell us about the lives of the
people who made them.
Make your classroom into a “Talking Wall.” After your explorer teams learn about Lascaux, give them
a chance to record images from their own culture. Visit the Talking Wall site below and learn about the ways
historical detectives learn about cultures by analyzing the images that those cultures leave behind.
Cover a wall of your classroom with rolls of paper. Before you begin, encourage your students to imagine people
discovering their drawings many centuries into the future. Ask your students which aspect of their lives they
think is important enough to represent. Technology, government, food, and entertainment are some of the areas
they may want to consider. Using only images such as drawings, photographs, or collages, your students can create
a rich depiction of their daily lives. When it is finished, sit with your class in front of the mural and encourage
them to talk about the images, and what they say about the class.
- The Lascaux cave was open to the public until 1963. After World War II, the entrance to the cave was widened
for visitors and over a thousand people came to see it every day. By 1955 it was clear that the drawings were
starting to become damaged. The carbon dioxide that the visitors breathed out was leading to the corrosion of the
walls of the cave.
Encourage your students to debate this problem: Human beings want to see and learn from the caves,
but their visits are causing damage. Preservationists might see the solution one way, and tourists another.
Brainstorm both sides of the argument. Does “saving” a cave mean keeping people away from it?
Make a list of ideas that could help resolve the situation. For example, the authorities decide to make a replica
of the main parts of the cave for tourists to visit.
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