French cave yields stone age art gallery.

A striking new addition to the ancient cave paintings that make up Western Europe's unofficial Museum of Prehistoric Art debuted last week, to the delight of archaeologists. French officials announced in Paris that explorers had discovered an underground cave displaying more than 300 well-preserved, expertly rendered wall paintings created by humans approximately 20,000 years ago.

The multichambered cave, found on Dec. 18, 1994, in southwestern France near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, boasts a Stone Age art collection that rivals that of Lascaux, the most famous site of prehistoric cave paintings, asserts Jean Clottes, an archaeologist who works for the French government. Clottes has inspected the new site.

"This is truly a great discovery," he told SCIENCE NEWS. "I was deeply moved when I saw the paintings. They're as good as any art made anywhere in the world."

Many scenes on the cave walls show animals running or engaged in some other activity. The most commonly portrayed creatures are woolly rhinoceroses, lions, and bears, as well as a smaller number of mammoths, oxen, horses, and wild cats. A rare prehistoric image of a hyena appears in one scene, and the only known cave paintings of a panther and several owls have also been noted.

Painting material included charcoal, yellow ochre, and a red pigment made from hematite.

Clottes calls the artistic technique used to represent the animals "exquisite." In a number of panels, animals are outlined to portray a larger group and to give the scene a sense of depth. A black pigment was sometimes spread by hand to shade an animal and throw it into relief.

Few other cave-painting sites contain depictions of woolly rhinoceroses, notes Randall White, an archaeologist at New York University who has seen a videotape made by investigators of many of the new cave paintings.

"Caves [with prehistoric paintings] tend to have one thematic animal, and it may be rhinos at this location," White suggests. "There's no indication that rhinos were hunted or eaten."

Other artwork at the new site includes tracings of human hands and various geometric signs, such as large dots and bars. One panel shows three horses' heads, two painted yellow and one red, next to red dots that form several semicircles and a number of bars.

The meanings attached to such symbols remain unknown, White says.

Three people, including a government official who helps guard prehistoric sites in the region, uncovered the art gallery while exploring gorges known for their ancient, decorated caves. They cleared rocks from an opening that emitted a telltale current of air and exposed a 21-foot-deep tunnel that led to the underground chambers. The tunnel had served as a chimney for the cave site, Clottes says. Natural processes have sealed off the cave's original entrance.

A network of art-bedecked chambers lay within. Some wings of this ancient art gallery cover the area of a living room, while others are as large as 70 yards long and 40 yards wide. The entire cave extends about 1,500 yards.

Investigators have found remnants of fires, pieces of flint, human footprints, and numerous bear bones on the floor of the cave. A bear skull had been deliberately placed on a thick rock in one chamber, although Clottes does not know whether this reflects a ritual practice.

Archaeologists will collect samples from the cave for radiocarbon analysis within the next few months, Clottes says. For now, he and White agree that the site is probably between 17,000 and 20,000 years old.