Scientists Finally Date Paintings in France's Font-de-Gaume Cave

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For more than a century, ancient art painted inside France’s Font-de-Gaume cave have kept their age a secret. Archaeologists knew the cave, tucked into the limestone cliffs of the Dordogne near Lascaux, held some of Europe’s finest Ice Age art. But they didn’t know when the paintings were made. Now, thanks to modern technology, they do. The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides the first absolute dates for paintings at Font-de-Gaume.

Radiocarbon dating ranks among archaeology’s most powerful tools. But it requires organic material that contains carbon, such as charcoal or bone. Mineral pigments like ochre and manganese oxide do not qualify. For decades, researchers assumed the black paintings at Font-de-Gaume and nearby caves such as Lascaux used only these mineral pigments. Now, a team of French scientists has overturned that assumption. Hidden inside the pigment was charcoal all along.

A team led by CNRS researcher Ina Reiche decided to investigate. The scientists used Raman microspectrometry and hyperspectral imaging to study the cave’s black paintings. Both techniques can identify materials without touching them, making them valuable tools for studying fragile cultural heritage.

The scans revealed charcoal distributed throughout the black pigment. It did not appear in random patches. Instead, it ran consistently through the painted lines. That pattern ruled out contamination from soot, graffiti, or decades of contact with visitors. The charcoal formed part of the original pigment, which artists mixed into the paint more than 10,000 years ago.

That discovery opened the door to radiocarbon dating. Researchers received permission to remove microscopic samples from two paintings inside the cave. The artwork remains extremely fragile, so the team took only tiny amounts of material. Laboratory analysis then produced the first absolute dates for Font-de-Gaume’s paintings.

One painting dates to between 13,461 and 13,162 years ago, placing it firmly within the Upper Paleolithic. Samples from another painting produced three different date ranges, spanning from 8,590 to 15,981 years ago.

The results suggest that people painted or modified different parts of the image at different points in time. The oldest and youngest samples sit more than 6,000 years apart. Rather than capturing a single moment of artistic activity, the painting may preserve changes made across generations.

That possibility offers a new way to think about Font-de-Gaume’s cave art. The cave walls don’t just preserve ancient paintings. They may also preserve evidence of people returning to the same works across deep time.