Altamira and its future

Abstract

The Lascaux Cave has been discovered in September 1940, protected and classified as Historic Monument in the same year. After extensive modifications of its entrance that caused profound destabilization of its natural bioclimatic system, the cave has been opened to the public in 1948. But after important microbiological and climatic diseases Lascaux has been closed to visits in 1963. After returning to apparently normal equilibrium and the cave remaining closed to the public, a new bioclimatic crisis suddenly arose in 2001 with an apogee in 2007-2008. At each stage in the history of the conservation of the cave the French government has implemented all the scientific resources necessary to ensure the preservation of the painted and engraved walls. Several scientific committees have been constituted. Their archives are important and provide numerous data on the multidisciplinary scientific history and on all the activities developed for the preservation of the cave. All the committees have coordinated the scientific research necessary to understand the functioning of the cave and to create or adapt the tools and equipments required to ensure its continued health. Several research programs have been and are actually developed in several directions: geology, hydrogeology, carbon dioxide origin, microbiology, etc. at national and international levels. Lascaux Cave is very fragile due to its shallow underground depth, its small dimensions and high CO 2 levels. More recently a climatic simulator has allowed researchers to model the climatic functioning inside the cave since its discovery. Using this preventive conservation tool and the very precise 3D model of the entire cave, it is possible to estimate the role played by natural and anthropogenic parameters in the changes of the internal climate, to test the possibilities of improvement of the climatic assistance system, before operating them, and the impact of human presence on the climate, and the feasibility of certain modifications to the cave structure. Microbiology is the second main approach implicated in the conservation of the cave. In the long term the fundamental research aims to understand the microbial ecology of the cave and in the short term the survey is increased, especially in the sensitive areas of the cave and of the painted panels, with different types of monitoring such as comparative photographic control. The main methodological aspect of this research and health control is to link the techniques used to identify and follow the evolution of the microorganisms with their function in the natural equilibrium or in other words the role of biological diversity. The fact that it is definitely not any more possible to open Lascaux Cave to the public has lead to the decision to build a new complete replica for preservation purpose, which will be located in Montignac, at the bottom of the hill, away from the original.

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