Lascaux's 18,000 year-old cave art under threat

They call her the Old Lady, for she is some 18,000 years old and frail, which is why she is protected by steel doors, security cameras and the gentlest nurturing the 21st century has to offer.

Tucked away on a hillside in Montignac, in the Dordogne region of southwest France, the dame of Lascaux is an Ice Age treasure.

Her walls are covered with remarkable pictures of horses, extinct bison and ibexes, painted when Man was still a hunter-gatherer and his survival far from certain.

But the cave is also at threat from invisible invaders: microbial contaminants resulting from some awful mistakes made last century.

Discovered by four teenagers in 1940, Lascaux became a massive draw after World War II, luring as many as 2,000 visitors a day.

The cave was eventually closed to the public but the damage was done. Humans had brought in heat, humidity and microbes, upsetting the cave's ecosystem.

Jean Clottes was one of those who had come to gawp.

In 1960 as a young man, he was moved to tears by the confident strokes of black, red and ochre and their witness to the human odyssey.

He later became a specialist in prehistoric wall painting -- and joined the campaign to save the precious site.

In an extremely rare visit to the cave last week, Clottes explained Lascaux had been affected in ways no-one could have predicted 60 or so years ago.

"The cave was completely disturbed," said Clottes, 78. "In 1947 alone, they dug out 600 cubic metres of sediment to make an entrance and concrete path and installed lighting for the public."

Six hundred cubic metres (22,000 cubic feet) is the equivalent to about eight 12-metre (40 foot) shipping containers.

"No prior study was done, and it completely changed the cave's micro-climate," sighed Clottes. "We altered its balance."

In its untroubled state, the cave's microscopic flora had had thousands of years to reach a truce in the battle for habitat. But the introduction of new organisms may have upset the peace, enabling one species to dominate others, said Clottes.

The cave was closed in 1963 after green mould started to appear. This was followed in the late 1990s by the emergence of a white fungus, Fusarium solani.

The bug either infiltrated the cave through a new ventilation system or during work during heavy rain to install it.

The outbreak was tackled aggressively, including the use of fungicides and antibiotic compresses applied to the walls.

In 2007, black spots of a different fungus, of the Ochroconis group, sparked the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to threaten to place Lascaux on its "World Heritage in Danger" list.

Chastened, conservationists today focus on a multi-disciplinary approach, believing any single thrust has side effects in other fields.

The cave is fitted with passive sensors to monitor air circulation, temperature and humidity but intervention is kept to a minimum.

The fungus seems to be in retreat, for it is limited to a few greyish traces on the bare rock and on small areas of some paintings.

"We are using compresses against it but not surgery," said Muriel Mauriac, an art historian appointed the cave's curator in April 2009.

Under scientific guidance, the human presence is limited to a total of 800 hours per year, including maintenance and academic research. Two hundred metres (yards) from the cave is a visitors' centre with a replica that receives some 300,000 tourists a year.

Visitors to the cave don sterile white coveralls, a plastic hair cap, latex gloves and two pairs of slip-on shoe covers. Previously they had to dip footwear in a germ-killing bath, but this was deemed to be another source of destabilisation.

Entrance is made through two airlocks, one of which is an "air curtain" designed to keep out external humidity yet not affect the natural draughts that circulate in the cave through fissures.

The paintings themselves, viewed in the glimmer of an LED forehead lamp, are breath-taking. The strokes by unknown hands trigger a shock of how we humans today are linked to our distant forebears.

After exactly 45 minutes, our visit is over. We are ushered out, the doors are sealed and the bison, horses and ibexes return once more to dark and silence.

From AFP

The Spaz Speaks: The Future of Archaeology

So, I was reading up on the moon stuff (ask Kurt, the day we launched that missile at the moon I sent him about four texts on what the result was: "No news here at work, need help, please tell me what you've heard.") and just the other day I read this article concerning the confirmation of caves beneath the surface of the moon.

This got my silly brain thinking. Human intervention (ie: the missile) caused a manipulation of the environment on the moon. That crater is an archaeological event. In 600 years, people will be able to look at that and see that in 2009 we blasted the moon in search of water.

Another concept that this brought to my attention, and that years of reading science fiction probably influenced me in reaching, is the idea that its easier to inhabit a pre-existing habitation (ie: caves) than it  is to start from scratch and build an entirely new base for occupation of the moon. What I'm saying is that its only a matter of time before we move into the moon caves.

What does this have to do with archaeology? That's easy, habitation means human influence, which means we're only a few years off moon archaeology.

Habitation of the moon isn't just a idea I threw together in boredom, its the whole reason we sent the rocket, and are looking for water. And habitation leads to archaeology.

So let's keep this chain of thought going. What new branches of archaeology are we looking towards in the future? We've sent landers to Mars many times in the past. When we get there are we going to send an archaeologist along to analyze the evidence that the videos and sensors couldn't pick up on, to retrace the tracks of the lander and its journeys?

What about the caves on the moon? Let's skip a little away from just archaeology and into a related field of geology. The caves were created by something, and, with the currently governing theory on how the moon was formed as an offshoot of our own planet's formation, geological processes studied on the moon could tell us untold amounts of data concerning our own planet.

Of course, this idea of space-age archaeology isn't new, and I've even read about "xeno-archaeologists" in some science fiction books, but it doesn't mean it isn't possible, or likely. As the world moves forward, so do its professions, and to think that the study of the past will remain stagnant is probably a little ignorant.

The oncoming day of the Moon-Archaeologist is upon us.

As readers of this blog, I ask you your opinions. The Spaz wants to know what other possible futures for the field of archaeology are on the horizon?

What do you think will be the next stage in our evolution as a profession?

--The Spaz

Related Posts:

Heritage protection on the Moon!
Why preservation is important…

Sexy News from the World of Archaeology for 18 July 2009

Here’s what’s happening this week in the world of Sexy Archaeology!

We've been hooked on the Moon for the past week now and until July 20th rolls around, the 40 year anniversary of the Moon landing, we're not stopping!  Muahahaha!

Ever wonder what happened to the original footage of the moon landing?  In an embarrassing acknowledgment, the space agency said Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.  D'oh!  If that's not a lesson in heritage preservation, I don't know what is!  Link.

What about those groovy space suits?  Surely they've been taken care of, right?  Well, sort of.

Turns out age is catching up with the NASA spacesuits as years of exposure to light and humidity are causing the suits, composed of 21 layers of synthetic materials, to decay.  Displayed behind glass in a museum since the late 1960s, the spacesuits are currently being restored as the United States prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of the moon landings.  Link.

Okay, now for something a bit more terrestrial.  How about we take a trip over to Utah to see what is happening in the world famous stolen artifacts case.

This week on Days of our Pot Hunting... wait, The Old and the Immoral.  How about Blanding, 84511?  No, I've got it General Thievery.  Anyway...

This week a Blanding, Utah man was arrested for accusations that he threatened to beat up the informant in the now world famous artifacts case.  Charles Denton Armstrong, shackled and guided by U.S. marshals, appeared before a federal magistrate Monday on the felony retaliation charge. Armstrong allegedly told a federal agent that he didn't want to kill the undercover operative, he just "wanted to hurt him real bad."    He was arrested Saturday in Blanding and faces a possible 20-year prison term and a $250,000 fine for making known his intention originally to a "confidential witness" to attack the undercover operative.  Here's hoping they throw the book at him.  Link.

That’s all for now!

Got a hot tip?  Working on something sexy cool in the world of archaeology and want to tell the world?  Contact sexyarchaeology@gmail.com and tell us what you’ve got!  Until next time, stay sexy!

Why preservation is important...

NASA could put a man on the moon but didn't have the sense to keep the original video of the live TV transmission.

In an embarrassing acknowledgment, the space agency said Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.

But now Hollywood is coming to the rescue.

The studio wizards who restored "Casablanca" are digitally sharpening and cleaning up the ghostly, grainy footage of the moon landing, making it even better than what TV viewers saw on July 20, 1969. They are doing it by working from four copies that NASA scrounged from around the world.

"There's nothing being created; there's nothing being manufactured," said NASA senior engineer Dick Nafzger, who is in charge of the project. "You can now see the detail that's coming out."

The first batch of restored footage was released just in time for the 40th anniversary of the "one giant leap for mankind," and some of the details seem new because of their sharpness. Originally, astronaut Neil Armstrong's face visor was too fuzzy to be seen clearly. The upgraded video of Earth's first moonwalker shows the visor and a reflection in it.

The $230,000 refurbishing effort is only three weeks into a monthslong project, and only 40 percent of the work has been done. But it does show improvements in four snippets: Armstrong walking down the ladder; Buzz Aldrin following him; the two astronauts reading a plaque they left on the moon; and the planting of the flag on the lunar surface.

Nafzger said a huge search that began three years ago for the old moon tapes led to the "inescapable conclusion" that 45 tapes of Apollo 11 video were erased and reused. His report on that will come out in a few weeks.

The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and '80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.

How did NASA end up looking like a bumbling husband taping over his wedding video with the Super Bowl?

Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings back in the Apollo years, said they were mostly thought of as data tapes. It wasn't his job to preserve history, he said, just to make sure the footage worked. In retrospect, he said he wished NASA hadn't reused the tapes.

Outside historians were aghast.

"It's surprising to me that NASA didn't have the common sense to save perhaps the most important historical footage of the 20th century," said Rice University historian and author Douglas Brinkley. He noted that NASA saved all sorts of data and artifacts from Apollo 11, and it is "mind-boggling that the tapes just disappeared."

The remastered copies may look good, but "when dealing with historical film footage, you always want the original to study," Brinkley said.

Smithsonian Institution space curator Roger Launius, a former NASA chief historian, said the loss of the original video "doesn't surprise me that much."

"It was a mistake, no doubt about that," Launius said. "This is a problem inside the entire federal government. ... They don't think that preservation is all that important."

Launius said federal warehouses where historical artifacts are saved are "kind of like the last scene of `Raiders of the Lost Ark.' It just goes away in this place with other big boxes."

The company that restored all the Indiana Jones movies, including "Raiders," is the one bailing out NASA.

Lowry Digital of Burbank, Calif., noted that "Casablanca" had a pixel count 10 times higher than the moon video, meaning the Apollo 11 footage was fuzzier than that vintage movie and more of a challenge in one sense.

Of all the video the company has dealt with, "this is by far and away the lowest quality," said Lowry president Mike Inchalik.

Nafzger praised Lowry for restoring "crispness" to the Apollo video. Historian Launius wasn't as blown away.

"It's certainly a little better than the original," Launius said. "It's not a lot better."

The restoration used four video sources: CBS News originals; kinescopes from the National Archives; a video from Australia that received the transmission of the original moon video; and camera shots of a TV monitor.

Both Nafzger and Inchalik acknowledged that digitally remastering the video could further encourage conspiracy theorists who believe NASA faked the entire moon landing on a Hollywood set. But they said they enhanced the video as conservatively as possible.

Besides, Inchalik said that if there had been a conspiracy to fake a moon landing, NASA surely would have created higher-quality film.

Back in 1969, nearly 40 percent of the picture quality was lost converting from one video format used on the moon -- called slow scan -- to something that could be played on TVs on Earth, Nafzger said.

NASA did not lose other Apollo missions' videos because they weren't stored on the type of tape that needed to be reused, Nafzger said.

From NewsWatch

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If you are going to comment, don't waste people's time with conspiracy theory bullshi* please.  We landed on the Moon.  There is no conspiracy.  Full stop.

Sexy News from the World of Archaeology for 30 April 2009

Here's whats happening this week in the world of Sexy Archaeology!

A list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places for 2009 has been released by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Included on this years list are the Miami Marine Stadium, the Century Plaza Hotel, the Manhattan Project's Enola Gay Hangar, and Dorchester Academy.  The NTHP website provides a list of things you can do to help save these historic monuments.  Head over to their website today and do your part to preserve history!

Researchers at University of Boulder in cooperation with the National Geographic Society have solved the disappearance of explorer Everett Ruess.  Ruess, an well-known artist and explorer, disappeared in 1934 while wandering the southwest with his donkey.  Analysis from teeth and bone found at a site in 2008 confirmed the identity of the missing man, but the specifics behind the investigation is what makes this discovery so interesting.  Read the full article for an in-depth look into the the steps taken to ID the remains.  Damn, science is sexy!  Link.

How many hours have you spent surfing Google Earth looking for undiscovered archaeological sites?  Well for a group of researchers at the University of Michigan, it paid off.  Using the popular mapping software, they discovered site which may contain the earliest examples of African wildlife.  Link.

That's all for now!

Got a hot tip?  Working on something sexy cool in the world of archaeology and want to tell the world?  Contact sexyarchaeology@gmail.com and tell us what you’ve got!  Until next time, stay sexy!