The Ardèche Gorge in the south of France. We're making a journey to the most important prehistoric site ever discovered. Ancient testimony to the dawn of human creativity and culture.
And it's hidden deep within these limestone cliffs. After the climb comes the descent. into the darkness and the silence. The Chauvet cave system is vast. We have to stick to the slim walkways that have been laid, weaving through the stalagmites and stalactites that reach out from the darkness.
Witnesses to this unbelievable time capsule are rare. Until recently, the only humans to set eyes on this place were our Paleolithic ancestors. before a rockfall cut it off from the outside world. Silled shucks for tens of thousands of years. This place was discovered by cavers in 1994 and then closed off to the public immediately.
Very few people have ever been allowed in but it's absolutely spectacular. It's not only the ancient footprints and animal bones that excite archaeologists here. The most important features of this cave are also its most breathtaking.
Hundreds of images adorn the walls, most of them animals. Drawn with charcoal and red ochre, they're surprisingly sophisticated, the artists seeming to have worked with the contours of the rock. They're so well preserved they look as if they could have been drawn yesterday.
But radiocarbon dating has revealed that they were painted 35,000 years ago by our early human ancestors. It's some of the oldest art ever found. And it's these paintings that are most at risk if the cave were to be opened up to visitors.
We risk contamination. Temperature can grow. very quickly, the climate would be disturbed so much that we could have alteration of the paintings. We don't want to take this risk. Scientists speak from bitter experience.
In 1940, the Lascaux cave complex was discovered in France. For more than 20 years, it was accessible to the public, until increasingly visible damage from mold and bacteria forced the authorities to seal it off. But these paintings are now thought to be damaged beyond repair.
35,000 years ago, while this gorge might have looked the same, life around here was completely different. It was the Ice Age. Temperatures in the south of France were more like those in Sweden today. Beasts like woolly rhinos and mammoths roamed the land, providing the inspiration for these ancient artists. Scientists once thought early humans were primitive, but the discovery of the paintings revealed that creativity was already flourishing.
So it's a shame the public can't see them. The authorities have faced a dilemma, a need to both preserve and promote this precious heritage. The answer?
Build another one. It's press day in the region's newest cave. This is one way to bring prehistory to the modern masses.
At a cost of 55 million euros, this replica of the Chauvet cave has taken eight years from conception to opening. It reproduces some of the cave's most important features to scale. and condenses them in a great big hangar perched on top of a hill only kilometers from the original.
It's hugely impressive this collaboration between scientists, architects and engineers. Apart from the walkways, the lighting and the odd gap in the ceiling, you could almost be in the real thing. But the walls here aren't made from rock, they're made from concrete and resin. Behind the scenes An elaborate scaffold supports the illusion.
Using scans and 6,000 images, they created a digital map of the cave and planned out the replica. Then a large team of sculptors and artists started bringing the geological features to life. But the big draw is these.
These were created off-site. With photos of the original images projected onto canvases of fake rock in the painter's studios, Gilles Tozolo was one of the artists. He spent six months working on these drawings. It's important for the public to see the art in the environment, in the real situation that they have in the real cave, because this art is really...
linked, very closely linked to the cave. You have the darkness, you have also the fresh air and so on, humidity. These elements are also an important part of the feeling of the emotion that you can have in front of the original.
The scientist who first advised the French authorities not to open the original says a replica is the next best way to share the cave's meaning. The people didn't live inside this cave. They lived outside.
And they went to the cave for the ceremony, to draw those animals, which were power animals. And the cave was a place which was charged with that supernatural power. And we know about that because very often they used the natural reliefs, the cracks, the bumps.
in the cave to draw the animals. For them, those animals were inside the wall, ready to appear. Away from the crowds, that will undoubtedly gather when the reconstruction opens, the real cave is full of the echoes of history. While it's been reproduced to great effect, it would be impossible to recreate the intimate connection with the past you feel when you're here. But with so few people privileged enough to compare the two, it's hoped that the replica will manage to evoke a similar sense of wonder and amazement, and give the wider world a glimpse of the past.