Louise Steinman:

I was aware of dark countrysides beneath my feet, an intricate geography of underground landscapes, and some of the people of the Upper Paleolithic knew that world as well as they knew the open-air world.” -John Feiffer, The Creative Explosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion

Rainy November day. Walking up the steep slope along the limestone cliff to the entrance to La Grotte Font de Gaume, near the village of Les Eyzies in the Vézère Valley in the Dordogne region of France. It’s one of the only prehistoric caves in the area where you’re still able to go inside to see the actual polychrome paintings, not a facsimile. Even though I visited this cave thirty-five years ago, I’m not prepared for the deeply sensory and psychological overload of this re- encounter.

Dating from the Late Paleolithic period, approximately 17,000 years ago, Font de Gaume was discovered in 1901 by Abbe Henri Breuil, Louis Capitan, and Denis Peyrony . It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, and, for conservation reasons, the number of visitors daily is very limited. Luckily, I’m here at the end of the season, and because of today’s rain and fog, not too many others show up. There will just be nine of us with the guide, an ebullient archeologist named Jean Pierre Vanzo.

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