Jean Clottes' Cave Art

I checked this book out from the library on a recommendation from the Slate Spoiler Specials podcast on Herzog's documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (which is as amazing and overpowering as the critics say, see it in 3D.) I wanted to write down just a few of the things I learned from the book.

Jean Clottes has written several books on caving, including some on Chauvet Cave (the subject of the Herzog film.) He is a world expert on paleolithic cave art and has a small appearance in the movie-alas, he's not the guy in the animal pelt playing the Star Spangled Banner on a bone flute. That guy ruled.

Here is a picture of Jean Clottes in Chauvet:

Paleolithic cultures are named for the French sites where they were first discovered. 95% of documented cave art is in France and Spain.

Cave art is a characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic (45,000-10,000 BC) and may be divided up as follows:

• Aurignacian culture (Wikipedia has different dates than Clottes. I'm just going to use his): 35,000+-28,000 years ago. This is the age of Chauvet (Ardeche, France.) Named after the Aurignac site.
• Gravettian culture: 28,000-22,000 years ago. The "Venus" portable figures become popular during this era. Clottes also says that "Venus" isn't really the correct name. Named after La Gravette in Dordogne.
• Solutrean culture: 22,000-17,000 years ago. This is the age of Lascaux (Dordogne, France.) Named for the Solutre site in Saone-et-Loire. Solutrean art appears to mostly in France and Spain.
• Magdalenian culture: 17,000-11,000 years ago. Named after the La Madeleine in Dordogne. This is the age of Niaux (Ariege, France.)

To improve adhesion to the walls, the pigment was sometimes mixed with stone powder called extender.

Aurignacians and all of their successors are homo sapiens sapiens.