Caves of Gargas
{{short description|Cave and archaeological site in France}}
{{more footnotes|date=June 2013}}
{{Infobox Cave
| name = Caves of Gargas
| photo =Grotte de Gargas.jpg
| photo_caption =Interior view taken by Félix Régnault before 1910
| location = Aventignan, Hautes-Pyrénées
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| coords = {{Coord|43|03|19|N|00|32|10|E|display=inline,title}}
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The Caves of Gargas ({{langx|fr|Grottes de Gargas}}, {{IPA|fr|ɡʁɔt də ɡaʁɡas}}) in the Pyrenees region of France are known for their cave art from the Upper Paleolithic period - about 27,000 years old.
The caves are open to the public.
Location
The caves are located near the town of Aventignan in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France, at the edge of the Haute-Garonne close to Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges.
History
=Human occupation=
The caves have yielded evidence of occupation (bones, lithics (stone tools) and portable art) from the Mousterian to the Middle Ages, but it is most famous for its paintings and engravings of the Upper Paleolithic.
The paintings have numerous negative hand stencils made by the stencil technique. The hands are red (ochre) or black (manganese oxide), using a mixture of iron oxide and manganese crushed with animal fat, and sprayed around the hand against the wall. Some have one or more fingers absent which leads to hypotheses of diseases, frostbite and ritual amputation, but most researchers prefer the symbolism of bending one or more fingers.
Many figurative engravings are also present in other parts of the caves, depicting horses, bison, aurochs, ibex and mammoth. Carbon-14 dating of a bone stuck in a crack in a wall decorated with hand stencils revealed close to 27,000 years BP, indicating that the cave was frequented in the Gravettian period. It is surmised that the Hands paintings probably date from this period.
Manos de Gargas (Francia).png|{{center|A digital art representation of Negative hand stencils made by the stencil technique}}
Incisive de bovidé percée (2).jpg|{{center|Perforated bovid Incisor – Gravettian Muséum de Toulouse}}
Gargas cave, Lithic industry.jpg|{{center|Lithic industry– Gravettian Muséum de Toulouse}}
Poinçon sur os abrasé MHNT Gargas.jpg|{{center|Awl made on abraded bone Gravettian Muséum de Toulouse}}
Discovery
The two chambers of the caves began to be scientifically explored and documented at the end of the 19th century by Émile Cartailhac and Abbé Henri Breuil, but it was Felix Regnault who discovered the hand-print images in 1906.
Tourism
The caves have been classified since 1910 by the French Ministry of Culture as a monument historique (historic monument), Schedule 2, and are open to the public.{{Base Mérimée|PA00095329|Grotte de Gargas}}
See also
{{commons category|Grottes de Gargas}}
References
{{reflist}}
=Bibliography=
- Foucher Pascal, San Juan-Foucher Cristina, Rumeau Yoan, La grotte de Gargas. Un siècle de découvertes, Édition Communautés de Communes du Canton de Saint-Laurent-de-Neste, 2007, 128 pages.
{{World Heritage Sites in France|state=collapsed}}
{{Navbox prehistoric caves}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gargas, caves of}}
Category:19th-century archaeological discoveries
Category:Caves of Occitania (administrative region)
Category:Caves containing pictograms in France
Category:Stone Age sites in France
Category:Monuments historiques of Hautes-Pyrénées