Pech Merle is a French hillside cave near Cabrerets, in the Lot département of Occitania, about 32 km east of Cahors. It contains prehistoric cave paintings from the Gravettian and possibly Magdalenian eras, featuring lifelike images of mammoths, equids, bovids, reindeer, and human handprints. Discovered in 1922 by Marthe and André David along with Henri Dutetre, the cave’s galleries extend over 2 km, with about 1,200 m open to visitors since 1926. Formed by an underground river over 2 million years ago, it was likely a refuge during the Ice Age. To protect the fragile art, visitor numbers are limited to reduce damage from humidity and carbon dioxide.
Dapple horses of Pech Merle
The paintings "Dappled Horses of Pech Merle", approximately 25,000 years old, depict spotted horses that look remarkably similar to the leopard pattern common in modern Appaloosas. Archaeologists have debated whether the artists were painting real horses they had observed or whether the spotting had some symbolic meaning. A 2011 study using the DNA of ancient horses, found that the leopard complex, which is involved in leopard spotting, was present, and concluded that the cave painters most likely did see real spotted horses.13 However later studies disputed this, claiming that the images "are at least 10,000 years older than even the oldest horses studied in the DNA search for “leopard spotting”."14
Prehistoric signatures of Pech Merle
A well-preserved image of a hand was also found in the cave. The "signature" is approximately 18,000 years BC. According to the thinner wrist, it is probably a female hand. Depictions of hands have been discovered in many prehistoric caves. The painter put her hand on the wall and sprayed it with paint.
External links
- Pech Merle, website of the Centre de Prehistoire du Pech Merle
- Genetic tests throw new light on French cave painting RFI English
- Heslewood[dead link] Author of "Chapters from the history of painting"
References
Heslewood, Juliet (1993). Chapters from the history of painting. London: Belithia Press Limited. pp. 4–5. ISBN 80-85871-53-X. 80-85871-53-X ↩
Michel Lorblanchet, Pech-Merle, Luzech, Boissor, 2006, 43 p., p. 32-38. ↩
Lawson, Andrew J. (2012). Painted Caves: Palaeolithic Rock Art in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 373–374. ISBN 978-0-19-969822-6. 978-0-19-969822-6 ↩
"Mammoth, Pech Merle". Retrieved 7 May 2012. http://www.donsmaps.com/images3/mammothpechmerle.jpg ↩
Pruvost, M.; Bellone, R.; Benecke, N.; Sandoval-Castellanos, E.; Cieslak, M.; Kuznetsova, T.; Morales-Muniz, A.; O'Connor, T.; Reissmann, M.; Hofreiter, M.; Ludwig, A. (7 November 2011). "Genotypes of predomestic horses match phenotypes painted in Paleolithic works of cave art". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (46): 18626–18630. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10818626P. doi:10.1073/pnas.1108982108. PMC 3219153. PMID 22065780. "Ancient DNA provides new insights into cave paintings of horses". Phys.org. 7 November 2011. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3219153 ↩
Adams, Laurie. Art Across Time (4th ed.). Mc-Graw Hill. p. 34. ↩
"'Tracking in caves': On the trail of pre-historic humans – ScienceDaily". sciencedaily. Retrieved 4 February 2017. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130603113353.htm ↩
"project – Tracking in Caves". Tracking-in-caves-online.de. Retrieved 4 February 2017. http://www.tracking-in-caves-online.de/start/projekt/ ↩
Lorblanchet, Michel (1991). "Spitting images: Replicating the spotted horses of Pech Merle". Archaeology. 44 (6): 24–31. ISSN 0003-8113. /wiki/ISSN_(identifier) ↩
"In Search of Human Origins – Part Three". Nova. 17 June 1997. PBS. Transcript. Retrieved 17 May 2013. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2108hum3.html ↩
"Presentation". Centre de Prehistoire du Pech Merle. Archived from the original on 27 June 2013. Retrieved 17 May 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130627124340/http://www.pechmerle.com/english/introduction.html ↩
Téléphone 05 65 31 27 05, Centre de préhistoire du Pech Merle Pech Merle 46330 Cabrerets. "Découvrez la grotte préhistorique du Pech Merle". Grotte de Pech Merle (in French). Retrieved 6 February 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) https://www.pechmerle.com/le-centre-de-prehistoire/la-grotte-du-pech-merle/decouvrez-la-grotte-du-pech-merle/ ↩
Pruvost, M.; Bellone, R.; Benecke, N.; Sandoval-Castellanos, E.; Cieslak, M.; Kuznetsova, T.; Morales-Muniz, A.; O'Connor, T.; Reissmann, M.; Hofreiter, M.; Ludwig, A. (7 November 2011). "Genotypes of predomestic horses match phenotypes painted in Paleolithic works of cave art". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (46): 18626–18630. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10818626P. doi:10.1073/pnas.1108982108. PMC 3219153. PMID 22065780. "Ancient DNA provides new insights into cave paintings of horses". Phys.org. 7 November 2011. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3219153 ↩
Alpert, Barbara (13 December 2013). "The Meaning of the Dots on the Horses of Pech Merle". Arts. 2 (4): 476–490. doi:10.3390/arts2040476. ISSN 2076-0752. https://doi.org/10.3390%2Farts2040476 ↩