Lasceaux is a very well known archaeological site. The distinction among anthropologists from homo sapiens to homo sapiens sapiens was done around this time period as humans started exhibiting inventiveness/imagination through art. Now we just cut the endowment budget and revert that
I am assuming the caves with the pre-historic paintings aren't open to the public? There was something about moisture from breathing damaging them rapidly.
The site should now earn good money from tourists. Perhaps a new protective coating after professional restoration. Aliens, over 40,000 years ago?
I don't know, the Lascaux cave has been closed to the public since 1963 and only scientists are let in occasionally because when the cave was open it got infested by fungi and lichen.
Prehistoric Cave Art in France A guide to caves, a replicas and museums of Ice Age art https://archaeology-travel.com/thematic-guides/cave-art-in-france/
A babirusa or ‘deer-pig’ and a hand stencil. Hunter-gatherers preyed on the strange and unique land mammals that evolved in isolation on Sulawesi. Photograph: Kinez Riza
I can never get tired of looking at these. They call the people of that era primitive, and they they were, in terms of technology and knowledge, but that sense of artistry is not primitive at all.
Did they use/invent ladders? That could be high tech in order to build stable ladders for the paintings during the era!
I am sure they came up with a suitable contraption. The ancients were capable of surprising feats of engineering.