The 30,000-Year-Old Cave That Descends Into Hell

bornkillerbornkiller AdministratorIn your girlfriends snatch
edited May 2011 in Life
I so wanna go there.:cool:

[VIMEO]18964665[/VIMEO]

There's a cave in France where no humans have been in 26,000 years. The walls are full of fantastic, perfectly-preserved paintings of animals, ending in a chamber full of monsters 1312-feet underground, where CO2 and radon gas concentrations provoke hallucinations. It's called the the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, a really weird and mysterious place. The walls contain hundreds of animals—like the typical Paleolithic horses and bisons—but some of them are not supposed to be there, like lions, panthers, rhinos and hyenas.
A few are not even supposed to exist, like weird butterflyish animals or chimerical figures half bison half woman. These may be linked to the hallucinations. The trip is such that some archeologists think that it had a ritual nature, with people transcending into a new state as they descended into the final room.
In fact, the paintings themselves are of such sophistication—some even have three-dimensional relief—that is hard to believe they were made back then. However, radiocarbon dating shows that these paintings are indeed prehistoric: A group was made around 27,000-26,000 years ago and the other at 32,000-30,000 years ago.
The cave first discovered in 1994 by three French speleologists: Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet.

Comments

  • JestAJestA Regular
    edited January 2011
    that is fucking amazing!!! im gona see that film!
  • highwaystarhighwaystar Acolyte
    edited January 2011
    Kind of reminds me of that book House of Leaves by Danielewski... cool...
  • FONFON Regular
    edited January 2011
    It's a Werner Herzog film?...AWESOME. Never thought he would do something like this.

    And why does it remind you of House Of Leaves?
  • The NegotiatorThe Negotiator Regular
    edited January 2011
    Oh man.. that's fucking awesome.
  • SHANE14SHANE14 Regular
    edited January 2011
    I'm totally going to download the fuck out of that movie
  • edited January 2011
    I hope this is recent enough that it is still making the rounds of the IMAX theatres here. Thanks for the heads up.
  • dr rockerdr rocker Regular
    edited January 2011
    Wow.

    It really makes you wonder, why all those years ago, why did man go there? Imagine the supplies of wood and tar fuel they would have to take to get down there and draw. The hardship and fear that they must have faced getting down there. Why draw those things as deep in the cave as that rather than all of the way down?

    I know man is a natural explorer, but were we running away from something, or towards something?
  • skunkskunk Regular
    edited January 2011
    It was the ice age, they were trying to stay warm by going deep as possible.

    A quick background to the last ice age
    Cooling again. After about 30,000 years ago, the Earth's climate system entered another big freeze-up; temperatures fell, deserts expanded and ice sheets spread across the northern latitudes much as they had done 70,000 years ago. This cold and arid phase which reached its most extreme point sometime around 21,000-17,000 years ago (18,000-15,000 radiocarbon years ago) is known as the Late Glacial Cold Stage (and is also sometimes called the Upper Pleniglacial).
  • KatzenklavierKatzenklavier Regular
    edited January 2011
    SHANE14 wrote: »
    I'm totally going to download the fuck out of that movie

    This
  • dr rockerdr rocker Regular
    edited January 2011
    While that area was on the margins of glaciation, the people could have travelled above ground easier to non glaciated areas of tundra. It may be that generations lived in the area during the last glaciated period, but it is strange that people went so deep.

    Maybe with the gasses in there and the halucinations they caused, they thought it was some holy place and they were getting closer to their gods.
  • skunkskunk Regular
    edited January 2011
    Some more info on the Chauvet Cave from the french government's (in english) culture website.

    Edit: Click "visit the cave" on the bottom left and you can see different pictures of the cave and a walkthrough as well.
  • bornkillerbornkiller Administrator In your girlfriends snatch
    edited January 2011
    Some more info on the Chauvet Cave from the french government's (in english) culture website.

    Edit: Click "visit the cave" on the bottom left and you can see different pictures of the cave and a walkthrough as well.
    That's pretty cool. Thanks. :cool::thumbsup:
  • edited February 2011
    It may be in IMAX still, but it's an IFC movie so it'll be on cable/satellite by March probably. I'm looking forward to the awesomeness of the videographic evidence in it. I might huff some CO2 and radon to get the right vibe for the movie.
  • Native ReserveNative Reserve Regular
    edited April 2011
    Possible noahs ark?
  • barcalouisbarcalouis Semo-Regulars
    edited April 2011
    When is the film coming out?
  • BigHarryDickBigHarryDick Cock Bite
    edited April 2011
    thanks.

    I am very interested in this and Looking more into it.

    I would love to explore this place myself one day.
  • JestAJestA Regular
    edited April 2011
    Ay someone should post a torrent/link for this documentary.
  • DeusExMachinaDeusExMachina Semo-Regulars
    edited May 2011
    Huff Radon!...?
    Radon huffing is retarded because it does not cause anything but cancer.

    CO2 on the otherhand is more interesting, as in fucking awesome-just look up Carbogen
    [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbogen"]Carbogen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Sign In or Register to comment.