The Cave and the Cathedral

IN  1994, THREE SPELUNKERS were looking for undiscovered caves in the Ardèche region of southeastern France. The region is named after the Ardèche River, which has cut through limestone for millennia and created hundreds of caves. On a summer weekend expedition they came across a place in a cliff wall where they sensed a draft of warm air near a pile of rubble. They dug around it but soon lost interest. Then in December they returned to the same place and felt a stronger draft. They began digging in earnest and entered a vast cave complex filled with dozens of cave bear skulls (a species that has been extinct for twelve thousand years) and hundreds of prehistoric drawings on the walls—drawings of such breathtaking beauty they knew they had made a major discovery. Two of the spelunkers chose to name the cave after the third, Jean-Marie Chauvet, who had been exploring the region for three decades.