Ivy Ross

The cave paintings of Lascaux date to approximately 20,000 years ago.

"I mean, you know, 20,000 years ago the caves of Lascaux." (said at 1:01:32)

Archaeological assessments and radiocarbon (14C) dating of organic materials and anthropic archaeological layers directly associated with Lascaux Cave place human occupation and the creation of its art to between approximately 18,000 and 21,500 calibrated years before present (cal BP), corresponding to the Badegoulian-to-Magdalenian transition during the Upper Paleolithic. Recent accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon measurements on fauna associated with anthropic activity in the cave yielded calibrated dates centered around 21,000 to 21,500 cal BP (~17,600 uncalibrated BP), closely matching the approximate figure of 20,000 years ago.

• supports: Dating the Lascaux Cave Gour Formation (Radiocarbon 2011) · cited 21x in the literature

  "Lascaux Cave is renowned for its outstanding prehistoric paintings, strikingly well-preserved over about 18,000 yr." (abstract, introduction, passage verified)

  openalexfull study (doi)
• supports: Twenty years on, a new date with Lascaux. Reassessing the chronology of the cave’s Paleoli… (Paléo 2019) · cited 17x in the literature

  "While the sample from the Passageway area failed due to low collagen yield, the other four produced reliable and highly comparable measurements centered on a 14C age of 17,600 uncal. BP (21.5-21 cal ka BP)." (abstract, results, passage verified)

  openalexfull study (doi)