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(dramatic music)

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- [Voiceover] 35,000 years ago, in Europe,

tribes of hunter-gatherers invented a fascinating artform.

(chanting)

An art populated with animals,

emerging from the depths of the Earth.

Some 18,000 years later in the heart

of the Périgord region of France,

they created their most fabulous masterpiece,

Lascaux, the Sistine Chapel of the prehistoric era.

Prehistorians have offered all sorts

of explanations for this wall art,

and theories abound concerning its purpose.

Hunting magic, totemism, shamanism.

Yet none has revealed a deeper meaning

of the works left behind by our ancient ancestors.

(energetic music)

But Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez,

an independent French researcher,

has come up with an exciting new hypothesis.

She believes the Lascaux cave paintings

represent a map of the sky.

The sky as seen by the world's

first artists, 17,000 years ago.

(dramatic music)

Her claims, advanced after many astronomical calculations,

represent a radical departure from previous interpretations.

But will the researcher be able to convince others?

- At times, I did have doubts,

so I would start all over again.

And each time, I came up with the same answers.

I can't backtrack now, I simply can't.

Whenever someone says "That can't be right."

I reply "Yes it is, it works."

(truck engine growling)

- [Voiceover] Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez first set out on

the trail of our ancient ancestors 15 years ago.

At the time, she only knew Lascaux by name.

She was interested in a totally different site,

located in the heart of the southern French Alps,

the Vallée des Merveilles, the Valley of the Marvels.

Together with her husband, Jacques, and Michael,

a guide specialized in the valley's history,

she is revisiting the place that initially

aroused her interest in prehistoric man.

(dramatic music)

Nestled high in the mountains at over 2,000 meters,

below majestic Mount Bego,

the Vallée des Merveilles conceals a unique treasure.

35,000 engravings carved by Bronze Age man,

between 2,500 BC and 1,700 BC.

Daggers by the thousands, axes and halberds,

motifs reminiscent of bull's horns,

wheels and anthropomorphic figures.

These rock carvings contain a mysterious message.

- Some people believe we are dealing with something

that is found throughout the Mediterranean basin.

Symbolic drawings produced by a

cult devoted to bovine gods.

With or without sacrificial rites.

While others believe it is a form of proto-writing.

That's the magic of the site,

it remains open to interpretation.

- [Voiceover] Chantal believes the sky

holds the key to this mystery.

For ten years, she worked on this site for her PHD thesis.

Her idea being that during the Bronze Age,

the valley was a vast astronomic observatory.

It was on the rock known as "The Altar"

that she made her first discoveries.

Here, prehistoric man carved dozens of daggers.

At first glance, there is no apparent

logic to their orientation.

- On the morning of the autumn equinox,

in the spring too, but in spring there's

too much snow, you can't see anything.

The sun rises over there, where the daggers are pointing.

- [Voiceover] To penetrate the meaning

of the 115 carved daggers,

Chantal applied the methods of archeoastronomy.

She used a clinometer to measure the incline of the rock,

and a hand-bearing compass to determine the orientation.

In this manner, she proved that the majority of the daggers

were oriented to the point of the horizon

where the sun rises on the day of the autumn equinox.

(awe-inspiring music)

Chantal also proved that in the middle of the night,

at the same time of the year,

the daggers were aligned with the moon.

- Basically, everything is pointing in the same direction.

- [Voiceover] It would appear the ancient engravers

recorded astronomical coordinates.

But why?

Another observation would provide part of the answer.

Beneath this huge boulder, lying upon the stone slab,

the sun and the moon light upon

a small cavity at the same time of year.

- You see this spot of light here?

- [Man] Yes.

- Here on this rock.

This occurs because it's the equinox

and the sunlight passes under the boulder.

- What was the point of observing all this?

- Actually, it's very simple.

We have the union of the sun and the moon.

So from this, you can see exactly where you are in time,

and reset the clock, so to speak.

- [Voiceover] When this phenomenon occurred,

the rock carvers knew winter was drawing in,

and the site would soon be covered with snow.

It was time for them to return to the valley.

The stone altar was there for a sort of

lunar-solar calendar.

As Chantal continued her research,

she became convinced that carvings

were the work of seasoned astronomers

who recorded the passage of time in stone.

She pursued her investigation with

these mysterious serpentine figures.

The archaeoastronomer's interpretation

is somewhat unexpected.

(mysterious music)

- This is a classic figure, which is familiar

to any astronomer interested in the path of the moon.

You have zig-zags like this, rising moon,

descending moon, rising moon, descending moon.

Here we have one, two, three, four, five, six,

one, two, three, four, five, six.

This means you have 12 lunar months.

We have 12 cycles, 12 lunar months in the year.

- [Voiceover] This isn't surprising.

If any observer were to draw the moon's

trajectory during its 28 day cycle,

and throughout an entire year,

he would obtain roughly the same drawing.

When she left the Vallée des Merveilles,

Chantal knew she was only at the start of a long story.

One that ultimately lead early man to observe the sky.

She wanted to write the following chapters,

pursue avenues unexplored by prehistorians,

and construct bold hypotheses.

(mysterious music)

The archaeoastronomer needed to understand

what had happened further back in time.

And so she turned to our Stone Age ancestors.

Those who decorated Lascaux's walls.

(ominous music)

- [Voiceover] The cold has come to the clan's territory.

The game has disappeared.

Provisions are low.

(fire crackling)

They have decided to set out again.

To travel further than on previous days.

They know which plants are nourishing,

those which stave off hunger.

They knew where to find rocks to make fire.

They repeat the gestures made by

their ancestors since the dawn of time.

They know how to hunt in groups to track animals,

to see them without being seen, to lay traps.

They have learned how to smoke meat

to preserve it for many days, many moons,

until the burning circle of light

rises high in the sky once more.

(birds singing)

- [Voiceover] When Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez

advanced her theory on the Vallée des Merveilles,

she was greeted with sarcasm and derision.

This intrusion into the realm of prehistory

by an atypical researcher was not looked on favorably.

(water flowing)

For years, archaeology and astronomy

had been mutually exclusive disciplines.

But one prehistorian decided to change all that.

Jean-Michel Geneste, the curator of Lascaux.

He invited Chantal to visit the cave

and apply her methods there.

She jumped at this chance to analyze

the world's most famous cave paintings.

Her research at Lascaux began one June evening,

on the 21st, the first day of summer.

(birds singing)

Chantal wanted to verify for herself

what she already suspected from studying maps of the cave.

She would discover something very astonishing.

- In 1999, I discovered that the sun shone into Lascaux

on the evening of the summer solstice, and only then.

I thought that this astronomical event

might've been what made the inside of the cave sacred.

And maybe this was why our ancestors

had decorated the walls and considered the site sacred.

- [Voiceover] According to her calculations,

the rays of the setting summer sun 17,000 years ago

shone through the narrow shaft

leading to the first Lascaux's galleries.

So casting light upon the walls

and illuminating the paintings

that were shrouded in darkness the rest of the year.

Until 1999, cave art had been thought of

as an art of darkness,

but it suddenly became an art of shadow and light.

Chantal's hypothesis allows us to imagine

the life of Stone Age man in a totally different light.

(mysterious music)

- [Voiceover] One of them has observed the sky

for days on end, interpreting its messages.

At the edge of the great forest,

he recognized the signal known to his ancestors,

the star which warms the Earth and makes trees grow.

Tomorrow, he will guide his clan towards the sanctuary.

He has chosen this cave to capture its rays,

to honor it once again.

(rhythmic music)

Everyone holds their breath.

Is it a sign for them?

Is the star telling them that its

upcoming disappearance is only temporary?

That it will be back, like every year,

after the winds have swept across the valley?

That they need not fear the forthcoming night?

- [Voiceover] Did the disappearance of the sun

below the Earth give rise to such rituals?

Even more than with her thesis on the Vallée des Merveilles,

Chantal's claims provoked angry responses

from the scientific community.

Absurd, ridiculous, unorthodox.

Her critics were ruthless.

And yet, some prehistorians were intrigued.

Such as Jean Clottes, one of the world's

foremost experts on paleolithic art.

- In shamanism, or rather, shamanisms,

because there are all sorts of shamanistic practices,

The supernatural world can be

situated in very different places.

It can be at the top of a mountain, at the bottom of a cave,

Inside rocks, and of course, in the sky.

The important thing is that people

believe they have access to it.

- [Voiceover] Jean Clottes does not interpret

prehistoric paintings in the same way as Chantal,

for over ten years now he has advanced a hypothesis

that is every bit as bold and controversial.

He believes the paintings, like these here in Cougnac,

were produced for shamanistic purposes.

They were the work of shamans whose responsibility was

to heal the clan, capture game,

and win the good graces of animal spirits.

This hypothesis also created a sensation

when it was first introduced.

- Here, for example, they used the natural contours

of the rock for their drawings.

From the very beginnings of prehistoric art,

you find this idea that the rock is alive.

There is an interaction between the world of spirits,

the supernatural world, where we are now,

and the world of the living.

Inside the rock were animals and spirits

that were ready to come out.

They were half materialized.

The painting served as a medium for man

to enter into contact with these supernatural

forces and harness their power.

(trumpeting)

- [Voiceover] In the forest he has

listened to the signals of nature.

He has seen the bison,

the spirit of the ibex,

a bull has spoken to him.

Now he must join them in the world of shadows.

Combine fire and pigments, lure the animals,

capture the curve of their backs, pierce the darkness.

Uncover the mane of a galloping horse.

Make out the blood coursing through its veins of rock.

Summon its spirit and charm its soul.

Carve, sculpt and paint. Again and again.

Make them come alive by the light of a torch

and harness their power.

Ask them for help, make them allies.

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] Could shamanistic practices

and solar cults coexisted?

Or even been part of the same view of the world?

Chantal is convinced of it.

- Jean Clottes and Jean-Michel Geneste

both found this interesting,

but they thought it might be a coincidence.

What I needed to do was study all the other caves

and see whether, statistically speaking,

I would find similar orientations and astronomical events.

So I set out with my husband.

We explored Burgundy, the Dordogne.

- [Voiceover] Chantal wanted to prove that the sunlight

played the same role in other painted caves

as it did in Lascaux.

It was a veritable challenge for a lone scientist

with no means of research or funding

and only her husband for support.

Her journey would last over seven years.

She visited the caves of Combarelles,

Font de Gaume, and Bernifal.

Her first results all pointed in the same direction,

these caves were all aligned with the sunrise or sunset

on key days of the year, solstices or equinoxes.

She took measurements for months, then years on end.

In the heart of the Perigord Noir region, at Commarque,

a 12th century castle rises above troglodyte dwellings

and a painted cave dated from 14,000 years ago.

As at Lascaux, the setting sun shines into

the cave on the day of the summer solstice,

lighting up its walls.

(awe-inspiring music)

Did the paleolithic artists use their caves

according to their orientation?

Did they discover the astronomical laws

governing the path of the sun?

If you closely observe the points of the rising

and setting sun for an entire year from the same spot,

you will see that it moves inexorably day after day.

On the first day of winter, the sun rises in the southeast

and remains low in the sky.

Night falls faster and is longer than the day.

On the day of the spring and autumn equinoxes,

the sun reaches the half-way point

of its annual trajectory and rises in the east,

days as long as night.

Lastly, on June the 21st, the first day of summer,

the sun rises in the northeast.

This is the longest day of the year.

For an observer equipped with a compass,

there are six significant points on the horizon.

Could paleolithic man have determined

these points without measuring instruments?

Absolutely.

They could have used natural landmarks

and observed the sun sliding along the horizon as the

months went by, so keeping track of the changing seasons.

To be sure the caves had been

deliberately chosen for their orientation

and not simply at random,

Chantal decided to expand the scope of her research.

She started investigating caves

without carvings or paintings.

On these sites, her compass indicated

no particular orientation.

All together, Chantal would travel 20,000 kilometers

and take measurements in 130

decorated caves and rock shelters.

It was a long, painstaking job,

but nonetheless indispensable if she was

to convince the world's prehistorians.

(footsteps on gravel)

Enthusiastic about her work, Count Hubert de Commarque

opened the doors of his Bourgonie estate to her.

Here she would set up her field laboratory.

The time had come to draw the conclusions from her journey.

- Over here, you see, the cave is there.

- [Man] The cave is there indeed.

- Bernifal is here,

the Mouthe is here,

Rouffignac's over there.

The Abri du Poisson, Laugerie Haute...

- Look at this.

- Yes, all three face toward the winter sun.

All of the well-oriented caves are decorated,

whereas the others are not.

- So it wasn't for geological reasons?

- I don't think so, I think we need to continue.

- [Voiceover] All of the measurements converged.

Of 130 caves, only four were not

aligned with the sun at key times.

For Chantal, there was no longer any doubt,

paleolithic man intentionally chose these sites

in order to carry out his artwork.

Chantal met up with Jean Clottes in Dordogne,

at the Abri du Poisson rock shelter.

She wanted to discuss a new possibility with him.

She wondered whether there was a relationship

between the way in which the animals are depicted

and the time of year when the sun lit up the shelter.

This salmon is represented with a curved lower jaw,

a characteristic of a kelt, or a post-spawn fish,

and spawning only occurs in the winter.

- We have this salmon on the ceiling,

it's pointing in the direction of the rising winter sun.

Only in winter would the sun have been low enough,

it rose over there, to cast light on the ceiling,

and make this salmon stand out.

And the salmon is depicted as a kelt.

- There is definitely a seasonal aspect,

and the fact that this salmon is a kelt,

indicates which season.

- [Voiceover] But is the Abri du Poisson a unique case?

One of a kind?

A detailed drawing of a naturalist before his time?

Is the fact the salmon is orientated

to the rising winter sun a mere coincidence?

Chantal knew she had to find further proof

to support her hypothesis.

(awe-inspiring music)

A scene in the Lascaux Cave confirmed her hunch.

Located deep inside the cave,

this panel depicts two bison standing back-to-back.

The tails of the two bison are crossed.

According to experts the fur color of the bison

on the left is a sign that it is molting.

While the erection of the bison

on the right indicates it is rutting.

Standing directly opposite the two animals,

Chantal measures the orientation of their eyes.

The eye of the bison on the right indicates 124 degrees.

And the eye of the bison on the left

is oriented at 56 degrees.

As for the two tails, they cross at 90 degrees.

- If there were a transparent wall here,

behind the eye of the bison on the right,

you would have the rising winter sun.

Behind the eye of the bison on the left,

you would have the rising summer sun.

And at the point where the two tails cross,

you would have the rising spring and autumn suns.

The image corresponds to reality.

Bisons rut in autumn and molt in spring.

So it's a small victory.

- [Voiceover] Early man knows about the winds.

He knows about changing shadows.

He knows that when winter comes,

the animals will leave the river's banks.

The light indicates the direction to follow.

The trail of the reindeer, the bison and the ibex.

He crosses the mountains,

tracks game in all weather,

season after season.

When life withers,

he silently follows the course of the river.

Spots the shadows of fish,

makes use of the reflections

on the surface to surprise them,

spearing their sides with his trident.

Winter is back, and with it the bitter cold.

(suspenseful music)

Season after season the clan draws strength

from the dance of the sun.

From the skill of the flint knappers

who prepare weapons for future hunts.

From the dexterity of the hunters who build up reserves

to hold the clan over until summer returns.

- Paleolithic man was very similar,

and yet very different to us.

Remember, we are westerners who

live in the complex world of the 21st century.

Ours is an industrial society.

We are removed from nature.

Our thinking is dominated by practical concerns,

not at all by spiritual ones.

You have to look at how these hunter-gatherers thought.

It's evident that they observed

the changing seasons, the stars.

It isn't at all impossible that

they translated this into art.

That is why Chantal's work interests me.

I believe she is on to something.

The results she has shown me,

for example the light entering the caves,

the fact caves were chosen in relation

to their exposure to the sun, or the moon.

Given that she is dealing with

a rather large number of caves,

I have the feeling she has put her finger

on something extremely interesting.

(crickets chirping)

- [Voiceover] Chantal believed she could go even further.

She was convinced our ancestors did not content themselves

with learning about the cycles of the sun.

They were also interested in the phases of the moon.

At that point, a carving of a Venus holding a crescent moon

constituted the only clue that

paleolithic man was aware of the moon's path.

But did he actually observe it?

(rock scraping)

The paleoastronomer embarked on this

new investigation with as much energy as ever.

She had heard of a small, carved bone,

previously studied by an American researcher.

This 35,000 year old artifact was discovered

by one of France's first amatuer

archaeologists, Rene Castanet,

who set up a small museum to house his finds.

Today, his son is the custodian of the collection.

What is the meaning of these mysterious markings?

In the 1970s the American anthropologist,

Alexander Marschack, studied this artifact while he

was researching the origins of astronomy for NASA.

His interpretation was surprising.

- Now the bone from the Abri Blanchard is a prime example.

On one piece of bone,

in the area about the size of a wristwatch,

he made 69 tiny marks.

This hunter was doing something nobody had expected,

and my analysis indicated that

this seemed to be a lunar calendar.

What he was doing was notating the passage of time,

notating the phases of the moon

as the moon waxed and waned.

In other words, this piece of bone was an abstract

of phenomena that was occurring out in the real world.

- [Voiceover] The American researcher's

findings were cooly received,

before being forgotten about for years.

Until Chantal became interested in them.

- He discovered the meaning of the marks, but,

(laughs) sadly for him and happily for me,

because I was delighted to discover something he hadn't.

He didn't realize that the serpentine form

is the result of observations being made from the same spot

throughout the entire observation period.

- [Voiceover] To confirm Marschack's hypothesis,

the paleoastronomer visited the Abri Blanchard

where the bone was discovered.

Sitting at the foot of the cliff,

like the paleolithic sculptor,

she recorded the measurements

necessary for her calculations,

the orientation of the Abri,

and the height of the cliff opposite.

The researcher then drew a chart that showed,

day-by-day, the height of the moon in the sky

and the point on the horizon where it set.

The results exceeded her expectations.

One by one, the coordinates she obtained

with her astronomical calculations matched

the tiny cupules, or cup marks, carved on the bone.

True, it was not a perfect match,

and some lunar phases were missing,

but the general outline of the

two figures is strikingly similar.

This bone was probably the first

lunar calendar in the history of man.

And its sculptor an astronomer before his time.

The observation of the moon and the sun

was of great importance to paleolithic man.

Knowing their precise movements would have

helped him plan for hunting and gathering

and prepare for seasonal migrations.

(dramatic music)

What if his knowledge was even more incredible?

What if he knew how to distinguish certain stars in the sky?

- I believe that man's first house was the sky.

He lived on Earth and looked up at the sky.

Today, we know that the sky has

an astrophysical and physical significance.

But at that time it was seen as a spherical starry vault.

Man looked up at the stars and tried to regroup them

in order to memorize them, to talk about them.

He gave them names, the names of animals in most cases.

Constellations varied from one place to another,

from one civilization to another, but basically,

daily life was governed by the stars

and by the height of the sun above the horizon.

At first sight, the night sky is made up of

thousands of stars defying all logic.

But if you look closer,

some stars are more visible than others,

as they are brighter.

These stars were recorded very early on in history.

The Babylonians grouped them into 12 constellations.

The constellations of the zodiac.

If you observe the sky long enough,

the stars appear to move around an imaginary axis

running through the north pole.

Did paleolithic man observe this phenomenon

and isolate groups of stars in this vast, starry vault?

Mentally projecting the image

of familiar animals on to them?

Back in Lascaux, Chantal realized that the cave

was far more than a gallery of paintings.

The very shape of this dome reminds her

of the belt of the zodiac in the sky.

One figure, a large bull to her right,

drew her attention.

She recognized the Pleiades star cluster

and the Aldebaran star.

She decided to measure the astronomical coordinates

of various points on the cave's animals.

Eyes, tips of tusks, lower flanks,

forefeet and hind feet.

Next, she turned to her astronomy software

to see whether her hunch was correct.

- I realized that the sun passed

through all of the constellations.

You have the unicorn, which would represent Capricorn,

and horses in the place of Sagittarius.

If the hall of the bulls were in glass,

you would see the constellations behind them.

(awe-inspiring music)

- [Voiceover] Early man, long regarded as brutish,

becomes the first observer of celestial phenomena.

The time spent on such studies

would have affected his view of life,

material survival and his origins.

One man probably tried to unravel

the message the stars wanted to teach him.

He measured, noted, compared,

and tried to discern the shapes

of familiar animals in the cosmic disorder.

And just maybe

he recorded his observations in caves.

- [Voiceover] Do the animals of Lascaux

belong to the sky of that period?

To verify this hypothesis Chantal had to first

recreate the summertime paleolithic sky.

The computer system at the Montpellier planetarium

would help her with this calculation.

Her journey through time could begin.

- I need the latitude of this spot.

I'll use this latitude here, it's roughly the same.

- Yes, 45 degrees exactly.

- I'll put the sun in now, to see what time it rises,

then we can...

- It should be around 7:30 AM.

- Let's enter all that and see what it says.

They're moving away now, Sirius is moving away,

and the other one too, Procyon.

- [Voiceover] 9,000 BC,

13,000 BC,

17,000 BC.

Within hours, the astronomy software recreates

the sky as Lascaux's painters would have

seen it on the first night of summer.

(typing)

Armed with this data Chantal then superposed

the constellations of the prehistoric sky onto

the prominent points in the hall of the bulls.

Before her very eyes, the superposition, although imperfect,

showed unsettling associations.

Capricorn, Scorpio, Leo, Taurus.

These constellations seem to merge

with the figures of the cave.

(dramatic music)

- I was stunned.

When I first visited the cave,

I thought paleolithic man had little

knowledge of astronomy.

I knew he was capable of detecting

the sun that shown into the cave.

I'd seen that in the maps.

But I never imagined he was capable of producing

an accurate representation of the constellations,

because that demands immense patience

and years of observation.

(mechanized whirring)

(conversing in French)

- [Voiceover] Lascaux, the world's first sky map?

The idea certainly fires the imagination.

But it has provoked criticism in some quarters.

Chantal first presented her results

to Gerard Jasniewicz, an astronomer and astrophysicist

at the University of Montpellier.

This researcher had been on the examining panel

when she defended her thesis on the Vallée des Merveilles.

But this time, he had mixed feelings.

- Certainly, there are elements which enable me to say

there are points, or marks, in Lascaux Cave

that could correspond to elements in the sky.

But, in my opinion, there is not sufficient evidence

to allow us to say with certainty

that Lascaux is a planetarium that coincides

exactly with what we see in the sky.

I feel there is something missing,

and I would hesitate to make a general interpretation.

- Obviously it isn't a planetarium like this one.

- [Voiceover] Chantal had difficulty convincing others

of the validity of her theory.

To compound matters, it stands at the crossroads

of two disciplines, astronomy and prehistory,

which tend to turn their backs on each other.

The hypothesis was too bold.

There was a mutual lack of comprehension

between scientists of both disciplines.

Skepticism won out.

- For someone like me, who knows nothing about the sky,

and the infinite number of stars,

many of which are so bright

they can be seen with the naked eye.

I have the feeling, that if you took the image of an ibex,

or a horse, or a bison, and you placed it over a sky map,

you would always manage to get it

to coincide with a certain number of stars.

Isn't it all rather subjective?

- It's important to understand

that the constellations are fixed in space,

and they never change, ever.

They never change position in relation to one another.

What's interesting here is that these constellations

are arranged in a certain order.

They form a sequence and this sequence corresponds

to the forms and sequence of the images on the walls.

- [Voiceover] For the paleoastronomer the superposition

she revealed is not that of a few lone animals

with stars chosen at random,

it shows that the succession of animals

painted on the cave's walls actually corresponds

to the sequence of constellations in the sky.

(dramatic music)

Despite her arguments, her fellow scientists were puzzled.

They voiced a number of objections,

and wondered, for example, how men and women

could have possibly inscribed correctly

oriented figures on the cave's walls

without the aid of measuring instruments.

- I realized that the only possible explanation

was that they used simple methods and gestures

resulting from observations made with the naked eye.

If you do basic astronomy, you learn for example,

to place your arm like this,

then your hand.

And everyone, whether it's a child or an adult,

comes up with the same measurements.

That is the length of your arm,

is proportional to your hand span.

That's to say, thumb two degrees,

closed fingers 10 degrees, and spread fingers 15 degrees.

- [Voiceover] Chantal believed some artifacts

discovered at the same time as Lascaux,

such as sticks with holes in them, ropes and oil lamps,

could have enabled early man to make these alignments.

(crickets chirping)

- [Voiceover] Was early man capable

of making such measurements?

Did he possess the tools necessary for these alignments?

How many gestures, how many attempts,

did it take to obtain the correct measurements?

How many nights were spent

establishing the cosmic directions?

How did he reproduce the exact positions

of the constellations in the depths of the cave?

What calculations did he use to chart the stars?

Their angle, distance and height?

How many points were transferred onto the wall

before the animal forms became stellar figures?

(intense music)

- [Voiceover] This demonstration is disturbing,

it supposes that prehistoric artists

were able to make real astronomy tools.

To back up this argument Chantal had no choice

but to interpret the artifacts found in the cave

in a different light.

For example, the assegai spears.

One of them bears incisions in the form of a star.

Could this have been a directional tool,

a sort of primitive compass?

- This is the base of the assegai,

the shaft would have been here.

- [Voiceover] Jean-Michel Geneste, the curator of Lascaux,

and Chantal studied the object together.

- I'm inclined to say that

its function is, above all, decorative.

Though there could be some meaning we are missing.

Did it have another significance?

It's a portable object, it's a hunting weapon,

and one that was obviously used.

I'm sticking with the idea that

these elements are highly symbolic.

They are extremely simple, but at the same time,

there are various forms.

There is a sort of systematic arrangement here.

For me that's the link

between wall art and mobiliary art.

- [Voiceover] Chantal had to bow to the evidence.

It is highly unlikely that the men of Lascaux

used the assegai as a primitive compass.

She visited Lascaux one last time

with Jean-Michel Geneste,

before the caves were closed to scientists

for conservation purposes.

Opposite her, a human figure, and a stick topped with a bird

are facing a bison with its entrails hanging out.

What do these paintings mean?

Do they have any relation to the stars?

these questions will remain unanswered.

With no access to the paintings,

Chantal cannot advance her research.

And without a research team to

support her and verify her findings,

it will be hard to bring her work

on one of the world's most beautiful

paleolithic caves to a successful conclusion.

- Chantal's work challenges the whole

body of knowledge and learning with which we work.

To discover that there was a

highly developed body of knowledge,

which was passed on from generation to generation,

and that these astronomic observations were repeated,

not for years on end, but for several times,

over periods of ten or twenty years, and then recorded,

radically transforms our knowledge

and our conception of this world.

And indeed, of how early man actually saw it.

As a result, the generally accepted ideas,

the paradigms that enable us to imagine

the prehistoric world all explode.

In this sense, it's an absolute revolution.

Can these events be validated?

Can the hypotheses be tested?

If this is the case, then we'll be forced to consider that

these societies possessed a highly structured knowledge.

And that's in complete contradiction with what

we currently know about hunter-gatherer societies.

- [Voiceover] As a result of Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez's

research a new image has emerged.

That of prehistoric societies with sophisticated knowledge,

which devoted a large part of their

time and resources to observing the sky.

The same sky we ourselves rarely admire,

blinded as we are by the bright lights of our cities.

(solemn music)

By studying the path of the stars,

man learned to master time.

He established the rhythm of the natural cycles,

took control of his destiny in the natural world.

This knowledge of the sky, passed on from generation

to generation, would have been of capital importance.

Did this knowledge form the basis of their myths?

Perhaps...

Far more research is necessary

to confirm the existence of such knowledge.

But at the end of this exploration

lies the understanding of an entire chapter of our history.

A history that has traveled to us

down through the millennia,

and which still fascinates us today.

(rhythmic music)