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<< Our Photo Pages >> Grotte de Niaux - Cave or Rock Shelter in France in Midi:Ariège (09)

Submitted by TheCaptain on Thursday, 14 August 2008  Page Views: 22173

Natural PlacesSite Name: Grotte de Niaux Alternative Name: Grotte de la Calbière
Country: France Département: Midi:Ariège (09) Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Tarascon-sur-Ariège  Nearest Village: Niaux
Latitude: 42.819730N  Longitude: 1.593660E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 5 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 2 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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I have visited· I would like to visit

43559959 would like to visit

XIII visited on 8th Jun 2022 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 4

J_W_R visited on 27th Aug 2021 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 3

NickyD visited on 1st Jul 2013 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 4 Access: 3

TheCaptain saw from a distance on 11th Sep 2005 - their rating: Access: 4 The world famous cave, known for its tremendous paintings of bison and horses, is easily found just up a small valley to the west of Tarascon, and is signposted from all around, you can hardly miss it. The cave is up the hillside from the village of Niaux with its museum, and is situated opposite to the Grotte de la Vache. The modern day entrance, with its rusting iron "artwork" is high up the hillside in an enormous opening, which was not the original entrance to the cave in ancient times, which was further down in the valley. Visits are year round, but only a few people are allowed in on any day to help preserve the conditions inside, so it is usually necessary to book your visit in advance.

TheCaptain visited on 16th Apr 2000 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 4 Full guided visit Grotte de Niaux with Sean. Fabulous. So glad I booked this up last week.

TheCaptain visited on 2nd Apr 2000 - their rating: Access: 4 Grotte de Niaux near Tarascon in Ariège. Check out the world famous Niaux caves for a possible visit soon. The main entrance to the fabulous Niaux cave used for visitors is now further up the hillside than it once was. In ancient times, there would have been several lower, smaller entrances.

Kuba visited - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 5 Access: 4



Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 5 Ambience: 4.8 Access: 3.71

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by thecaptain : Bison inside the Grotte de Niaux. (Vote or comment on this photo)
The world famous cave, known for its tremendous paintings of bison and horses, is easily found just up a small valley to the west of Tarascon, and is signposted from all around, you can hardly miss it.

The cave is up the hillside from the village of Niaux with its museum, and is situated opposite to the Grotte de la Vache. The modern day entrance, with its rusting iron "artwork" is high up the hillside in an enormous opening, which was not the original entrance to the cave in accient times, which was further down in the valley.

Visits are year round, but only a few people are allowed in on any day to help preserve the conditions inside, so it is wise to book your visit well in advance. Hence low Access score.

Information and Pictures
hominides.com

Note: See comment for acoustic theory relating to this and other French caves
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Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by thecaptain : Bison inside the Grotte de Niaux. (2 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by Harald_Platta : Stamp: Ariege-Grotte-de-Niaux-1979. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Head of bison, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Bison pierced with arrows or spears, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Two black bison, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by thecaptain : Ancient footprints inside the Grotte de Niaux.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by Flickr : DSC00055 Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France Grotte de Niaux - prehistoric painting 14000 years old Image copyright: francoisforster, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by Flickr : IMG_1138 Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France Intérieur de la grotte de Niaux, art pariétal (environs de Foix) Image copyright: LEROYannie27 (Annie Leroy), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by Flickr : Grotte de Niaux Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France Pour en savoir plus sur les Grands Sites de Midi-Pyrénées, rendez-vous sur : www.grandsites.midipyrenees.fr Image copyright: Compte officiel du Comité Régional du Tourisme (Tourisme Midi-Pyrénées), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by KaiHofmann : Entrance of Niaux in 2001.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by KaiHofmann : The mountain of the Niaux cave.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by KaiHofmann : Entrance of Niaux in 2001.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Bison, Horse and Ibex at Niaux, from "Art of the Stone Age..." via archive.org Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Bison, Fish and Ibex at Niaux, from "Art of the Stone Age..." via archive.org Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Dying Bison and abstract markings, from "Prehistoric relics..." via archive.org Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Horse in winter coat, image from "Men of the Old Stone Age" via archive.org Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Bison struck by arrows and/or spears, image from "Men of the Old Stone Age" via archive.org Site in Midi:Ariège (09) France

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : "Trout", or more likely salmon, engraving in clay on the cave floor, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by durhamnature : Ibex, from "Art of the Stone Age" via archive.org

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by theCaptain : The modern day entrance, with its access road and its rusting iron "artwork" is high up the hillside in an enormous opening, seen across the valley from near the Grotte de la Vache.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by thecaptain : Bison inside the Grotte de Niaux.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by thecaptain : Horse inside the Grotte de Niaux.

Grotte de Niaux
Grotte de Niaux submitted by thecaptain : The cave is up the hillside from the village of Niaux with its museum, and is situated opposite to the Grotte de la Vache. The modern day entrance, with its rusting iron "artwork" is high up the hillside in an enormous opening, which was not the original entrance to the cave in accient times, which was further down in the valley.

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 289m SSE 159° Grotte de la Petite Caougno* Cave or Rock Shelter
 488m WNW 282° Grotte de La Vache* Cave or Rock Shelter
 1.9km ENE 78° Grotte de Lombrives* Cave or Rock Shelter
 2.1km NNW 340° Dolmen de la Plagne Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 2.1km SSW 212° Dolmen de Quiernès Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
 2.4km ENE 69° Grotte des Eglises Cave or Rock Shelter
 3.0km NNE 23° Musée de Tarascon Museum
 4.3km ESE 103° Grotte de Fontanet Cave or Rock Shelter
 4.3km NNW 339° Parc Pyrénéen de l'Art Préhistorique* Museum
 6.1km NNW 342° Grotte de Bédeilhac* Cave or Rock Shelter
 7.4km NNE 15° Dolmen de Peyrogall* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 8.6km SW 230° Palet de Sanson* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
 16.1km N 4° Grotte de Cheval Cave or Rock Shelter
 16.2km N 3° Musée Départemental de l'Ariège* Museum
 17.6km ESE 115° La Cabane de Rolana* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 17.7km NNE 19° Grotte de l'Herm Cave or Rock Shelter
 20.4km ENE 74° Montségur museum* Museum
 20.4km ENE 72° Montségur* Ancient Village or Settlement
 21.0km ESE 119° Menhir de Savignac-les-Ormeaux* Standing Stone (Menhir)
 22.7km ENE 69° Roc de Fougasse Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
 23.5km WNW 291° Grotte du Ker de Massat* Cave or Rock Shelter
 23.8km N 349° Grotte du Portel* Cave or Rock Shelter
 26.0km NW 320° Hautech ancient copper mine Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 26.5km NW 314° Rougé ancient copper mine Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 27.7km ENE 74° Source de Fontestorbes* Holy Well or Sacred Spring
View more nearby sites and additional images

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"Grotte de Niaux" | Login/Create an Account | 7 News and Comments
  
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Re: Stone Age Art Caves May Have Been Concert Halls by TheCaptain on Sunday, 15 July 2012
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see the entrance in the mountain on the opposite side of the valley, here on streetview

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Gigapan: Prehistoric Cave Art of Niaux by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 23 November 2010
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Deep in the mountainside near the Ariege river in France, ghostly images of long ago still dance across the rock walls of tunnels, overhangs, and vast caverns.

Explore this digital panorama, constructed from more than 100 individual photographs, and discover the images put there 13-14,000 years ago by the people now known as Magdalenian.

Look for bison, horses, ibex, and even a deer. Let your eyes and mind wander. Why were they put there? What did they represent? As close as we can get to the images themselves, the answers to these questions still disappear, like the light of our flashlights down dark tunnels, beckoning us to continue the exploration.

To explore this GigaPan, use the controls located at the left of the image, click-and-drag and scroll with your mouse, or use your keyboard's arrow keys to navigate left or right and the plus and minus keys to zoom in and out. Click "View All" to see the entire image.

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/gigapan/niaux/?source=link_fb20101026caveart

Submitted by coldrum.
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Pleistocene Art of the World Congress 2010, France , 6–11 September by coldrum on Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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Pleistocene Art of the World Congress 2010, France , 6–11 September


Pleistocene Art of the World Congress 2010

IFRAO Congress,

Tarascon-sur-Ariège and Foix, France
6–11 September 2010

This major palaeoart congress will be held in the heartland of the Franco-Cantabrian
cave art traditions, at the foot of the French Pyrenees. It is expected to
become a major benchmark event in the discipline. It will be hosted by IFRAO in
conjunction with French government authorities. Fieldtrip programs will include
privileged visits to Palaeolithic cave art sites in France.

CONGRESS RATIONALE
The existence of Pleistocene rock art, first proposed by Marcelino de Sautuola
in 1879, was slowly accepted in the late 19th century. Since then, investigation
of this phenomenon has been largely focused on a small region of western Europe,
which has yielded over 300 cave sites of the most exquisite Palaeolithic rock
art. Over the subsequent century, an elaborate stylistic chronology of this
corpus, featuring naturalistic animal depictions and semiotic motifs, was
developed. It also became the template of Pleistocene rock art in guiding the
search for such phenomena in other regions of the world, prompting many reports
of such rock art as well as portable art from across Eurasia. Research in recent
decades has suggested that most Pleistocene palaeoart of the world may not be
figurative, and most may be of Middle rather than Upper Palaeolithic modes of
production. New evidence suggests there appears to be almost no figurative
graphic art of the Pleistocene outside of western Europe. Typically, graphic
Pleistocene art of Asia, Africa and Australia seems to be non-figurative (with
very few exceptions), and the corpus of Australian Pleistocene rock art, which
some assume to be the largest in the world, is entirely of Middle Palaeolithic
traditions. Palaeoart of the final Pleistocene seems to occur in North America
and may also yet be found in South America. Finally, India has yielded rock art
even of the Lower Palaeolithic, and similarly ancient palaeoart may conceivably
occur in Africa.
This scenario differs so significantly from the popular model of Pleistocene art
that a congress should be dedicated to this subject, addressing questions of
dating, of the definitions of palaeoart, and of regional distribution of
evidence in each continent, re-evaluating the topic of the global phenomenon of
Pleistocene palaeoart traditions. We invite contributions on all aspects of this
subject.

Jean Clottes, Giriraj Kumar and Robert Bednarik (Immediate-Past-President,
previous President and Convener of IFRAO respectively)



SYMPOSIA

Pleistocene art in Africa: Peter Beaumont, se@museumsnc.co.za and Dirk Huyge, d.huyge@kmkg.be
Pleistocene art in the Americas: Alice Tratebas ATratebas@aol.com, André Prous,
aprous@dedalus.lcc.ufmg.br and María Mercedes Podestá, mercedespodesta@yahoo.com
Pleistocene art in Asia: Giriraj Kumar, girirajrasi@yahoo.com and Majeed Khan,
majeedkhan42@hotmail.com)
Pleistocene art in Australia: Robert Bednarik, robertbednarik@hotmail.com and
John Campbell, john.campbell@jcu.edu.au
Pleistocene art in Europe: Jean Clottes, j.clottes@wanadoo.fr and Manuel
González Morales, moralesm@unican.es

Signs, symbols, myth, ideology in Pleistocene

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Grotte de Niaux by coldrum on Tuesday, 07 July 2009
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Website:

http://www.sesta.fr/grotte-de-niaux.html
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Stone Age Art Caves May Have Been Concert Halls by Andy B on Thursday, 14 August 2008
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Prehistoric peoples chose places of natural resonant sound to draw their famed cave sketches, according to new analyses of paleolithic caves in France.

In at least ten locations, drawings of horses, bison, and mammoths seem to match locations that focus, amplify, and transform the sounds of human voices and musical instruments.

"In the cave of Niaux in Ariège, most of the remarkable paintings are situated in the resonant Salon Noir, which sounds like a Romanesque chapel," said Iegor Reznikoff, an acoustics expert at the University of Paris who conducted the research.

The sites would therefore have served as places of natural power, supporting the theory that decorated caves were backdrops for religious and magical rituals.

An intriguing possibility—but one that Reznikoff admits is hard to test—is that the acoustic properties of a cave partly influenced what animals were painted on its walls.

For example, "maybe horses are related to spaces that sound a certain way," he said.

Reznikoff will present his latest findings this week at the annual meeting of the Acoustics Society of America in Paris.

Strategic Placement

Reznikoff first noticed the strategic placement of cave art while visiting Le Portel, a paleolithic cave in France, in 1983.

An expert in the acoustics of 11th- and 12th-century European churches, Reznikoff often hums to himself when entering a room for the first time so he can "feel its sounds."

He was surprised to discover that in some of the rooms in Le Portel decorated with painted animals, his humming became noticeably louder and clearer.

"Immediately the idea came," he told National Geographic News. "Would there be a relationship between the location of the painting and the quality of the resonance in these locations?"

Since that moment, Reznikoff has found correlations between painting locations and the resonance of their surroundings in more than ten paleolithic caves across France with illustrations ranging from 25,000 to 15,000 years old.

Many are packed together in parts of the caves where the human voice is amplified and where songs and chants would have lingered in the air as abiding echoes.

Paul Pettitt, a paleolithic rock art expert at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. who was not involved in the study, said Reznikoff's theory could explain the puzzling distribution of paintings at many cave sites.

"In a number of decorated caves the images cluster in certain areas," Pettitt said. "They are not randomly distributed but seem deliberately placed, with areas of perfectly 'paintable' walls ignored, and in a number of cases the paintings cluster in areas of resonance."

Artistic Connection

Ian Cross, director of the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge, was not involved in the study.

Cross said Reznikoff's theory is "interesting" and warrants further investigation.

"What he's done strongly suggests that there are grounds for following this up with some properly controlled studies" involving detailed acoustical measurements, Cross said.

Pettitt, the University of Sheffield archaeologist, said Reznikoff's research is consistent with other work that suggests music and dance played an integral role in the lives of ancient people.

Instruments such as bone flutes and "roarers"—bone and ivory instruments that whir rhythmically when spun—have been found in decorated caves.

In rare instances, cave images include highly stylized females who appear to be dancing or enigmatic, part-animal "sorcerer" figures engaging in what seem to be transformational dances.

"This is therefore an artistic connection between dance and art. Perhaps in this case the art is recording specific ritual events," Pettitt said. "It is inconceivable that such ritu

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