Chauvet Cave
| Decorated cave of Pont d'Arc, known as Grotte Chauvet-Pont d'Arc, Ardèche | |
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| Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List | |
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| Location | France |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, iii |
| Reference | 1426 |
| UNESCO region | Europe and North America |
| Coordinates | 44°23′15″N 4°24′51″E / 44.38750°N 4.41417°ECoordinates: 44°23′15″N 4°24′51″E / 44.38750°N 4.41417°E |
| Inscription history | |
| Inscription | 2014 (38th Session) |
 Location in France
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The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southern France is a cave that contains some of the best preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River, in the Gorges de l'Ardèche.
Discovered on December 18, 1994, it is considered one of the most significant prehistoric art sites and the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO granted it World Heritage status on June 22, 2014. Its paintings, along with those of Lascaux and the Cave of Altamira, have been dubbed a "prehistoric Sistine Chapel."
The cave was first explored by a group of three speleologists: Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet for whom it was named. Chauvet (1996) has a detailed account of the discovery. In addition to the paintings and other human evidence, they also discovered fossilized remains, prints, and markings from a variety of animals, some of which are now extinct.
Further study by French archaeologist Jean Clottes has revealed much about the site. The dates have been a matter of dispute but a study published in 2012 supports placing the art in the Aurignacian period, approximately 32,000–30,000 years BP. A study published in 2016 using additional 88 radiocarbon dates showed two periods of habitation, one 37,000 to 33,500 years ago and the second from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago with most of the black drawings dating to the earlier period.
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