Cave Paintings Research Articles

Nuove indagini sulle pitture rupestri dell’eremo di Selvascura presso il Santuario del Crocifisso a Bassiano

This article aims to re-examine the frescoes in the Selvascura hermitage in Bassiano, one of the medieval pictorial contexts created in caves in Lower Lazio, both from an iconographic and stylistic point of view. In the past, the paintings aroused some attention from local connoisseurs, but they collected a barely timid interest in critical publications. The carried out research revealed the existence of a link between the iconographic choices made in the cave paintings and the Greek theological literature, especially the Heavenly Ladder of St. John Climacus, known by the Franciscan Spirituals thanks to the translations by Angelo Clareno. Therefore, it is possible to suggest a new iconological interpretation of the frescoes on the right side of the cave and to overcome the traditional approach that considered the decoration of this hermitage as a mere juxtaposition of votive panels. Furthermore, an unpublished painting inspired by one of the apologues told by Barlaam to the Indian prince Josaphat has been identified and it can be added to the small list of monumental works with this theme related to the Italian Middle Age. This paper explains also all the documents from the current archives of the Soprintendenza concerning these frescoes and their preservative history from the 70s to the 90s of the XX century. Finally, an accurate analysis of the stylistic features and the comparison with other pictorial and mosaic works from Rome and the rest of Lazio allow to date back the paintings to the period between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century and to recognize the style of unknown artists trained in the school of Cavallini, very close to the Magister Conxolus’s lesson.

Problem sztuki naskalnej w Polsce

It is assumed that occurrence of Palaeolithic cave art in Central and Eastern Europe is not typical for this part of the continent, as it is difficult to consider its few examples as a result of solely poor preservation. Looking into this issue from the perspective of region of modern Poland, several questions arise: Why is it registered on so few sites, and is it truly an atypical phenomenon for the region? In problem discussion, there are three key elements: research interest, state of preservation, and competences needed for making a discovery. These elements, covered in following paper, explicitly suggest that in terms of Polish cave sites, we do not possess enough information to conclude which type of occurrence we are dealing with.

Microanalytical Investigation of Prehistoric Colorants from Uralian Rock Art (Ignatievskaya Cave and Idrisovskaya II and Zmiev Kamen’ Pictographs)

Uralian parietal and rock art (cave paintings and pictographs, or “pisanitsy”) represents a unique archaeological and cultural phenomenon, comprising 90 sites stretching for more than 800 km from north to south, which date from the Paleolithic era extending into the present Holocene epoch. The identification of the nature of prehistoric colorants provides an insight into their provenance, manufacture and utilization, as well as contributing to the conservation and restoration of drawings. The studies of mineral, elemental and organic phase composition of the colorant micro-samples from the drawings of Ignatievskaya cave and Idrisovskaya II and Zmiev Kamen’ pictographs (Southern and Middle Urals, Russia) discussed in the present work were carried out using a special set of microspectroscopic methods (SEM-EDS and Raman spectroscopy) offering high spatial resolution. The fatty acid composition of the organic phase was analyzed by GC–MS. The technology of colorant manufacture could have included thorough grinding and mixing of unheated hematite with an organic binder made from animal fat and a clayey extender in order to achieve the desired hue and intensity of the color. It is possible that the colorant was applied in layers (Idrisovskaya II and Zmiev Kamen’ pictographs). The development of authigenic phosphate and sulfate (gypsum) mineralization, which is observed in all studied sites, as well as oxalate encrustation on the Idrisovskaya II pictograph, indicates the conditions and processes of secondary mineral formation.

Pigment spectroscopy analyses in Maltravieso cave, Spain

Maltravieso cave (Estremadura, Spain) was recently the subject of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy of 8 figures (four hand stencils, a red horse figure, a black bull figure, a pair of black lines, and a pair of brown lines). These artistic representations are composed of different colors including red, brown, and black figures. The analyses showed that different naturally occurred material compounds in the cave (such as kaolinite) were used in the creation of the ochre to obtain different hues. Hand stencils are made of earth pigment that is naturally present in the cave which contained hematite, magnetite, and goethite as chromophores material. The red horse figure was made with kaolinite-based ochre. The black bull figure was made with charcoal (identified with Raman spectroscopy). The pigmental composition analyses show that they are composed of the same natural matter found inside the cave. Our results suggest that different paintings in the cave have been produced by different techniques and these techniques are linked to different chronological periods.

A Critical Study on Why Did People, ‘Accustomed to Nakedness’, Begin to Cover or Decorate Their Bodies?

Evidence of the very first clothing is mostly indirect. Almost all of what we know about early clothes is based on conjecture and assumption. It is impossible to say when humans first started wearing garments. Based on the cave drawings, carved figures and other such evidences including remnants and traces of very early cloths, the archeologists suggested that humans may have begun wearing clothing between 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Neanderthal man, who lived between 200,000 B.C.E. to 30,000 B.C.E., learnt to use the hides of the animals they hunted to keep themselves warm and dry, referred as the first known person to fabricate clothing. It's also possible that clothes were designed for other functions at first, such as adornment, worship, or prestige, and were later discovered to be useful as well. This paper includes the investigation about need and psychology behind the origin of clothing through some fundamental theories of clothing and their applications to perform very specific functions. This research aims to reveal fashion concepts, as well as the path from prehistoric man's clothing demands to present fashion trends. Furthermore, it lays the foundation for those who are keen to learn fashion by starting a discussion on why people wear clothes so that the readers/ fashion graduates and professionals can recognize the motivations behind the desires of individuals in order to design and construct clothes in creative ways to maximize wearer’s satisfaction level.

LOW COST 3D RECONSTRUCTION OF CAVE PAINTINGS FOR THE CONSERVATION OF COLOMBIAN HISTORICAL MEMORY: CASE STUDY INDIGENOUS ROCK ART OF THE SACRED PLACE “PIEDRAS DE TUNJO”

Abstract. Anthropic activities are produced by constant human activity in nature which, over time, account for the different civilizations. Rock art allows through pictorial manifestations to capture these anthropic activities, which in many parts of the world are preserved as cultural heritage. Colombia, unfortunately, has an incipient development with the conservation of its cultural and intangible heritage, which has had little progress in recent times, if it is about indigenous cave paintings (Méndez-Vargas, 2019). According to history, the first settlers of the Bogotá Savannah lived in the area currently called "Las Piedras de Tunjo" considered a sacred place by the Muiscas - our ancestors. This area located in the municipality of Facatativá, and is currently constituted as one of the five archaeological parks that Colombia has, is 27 hectares and is located at a height of 2600 meters above sea level. In 1912, Rosales, seeing the spatial richness, stated that these stones should be looked at with interest and carefully cared for, because apart from the rugged beauty of the site, they witnessed important events for Colombia. The pictographs on the rock are now believed to date back more than 12,000 years. Although there are multiple images and videos of the site, this project seeks to approach the 3D reconstruction of an area of the park through SfM photogrammetry (Structure-from-Motion - Westoby, 2012) with a low-cost and easy-to-implement methodology (Santagati et al., 2017; Tavera et al., 2019) to promote historical conservation and Colombian cultural heritage in an indigenous sacred place to democratize it. This work documents different experiments and their results, of the 3D reconstruction using different data sources and software that will allow it to be an input in archeology to better understand the indigenous history of the area that was deteriorated in the 20th century.

The Triumph of the blue in nature and in Anthropocene

Blue was the last color to be spread in Nature by the anthocyanins present in angiosperms, and the last color to be managed by Humans in Anthropocene. Blue also appears in a small number of algae, fungi, and bacteria, but these living beings have very little to do with the profusion of a natural blue hue. Humanity took many long years to figure out how to reproduce and use blue - the classic example of which is indigo dye, extracted from plants like the Indigofera tinctoria. However, even simple anthocyanins are not capable of achieving blue. Plants had to develop strategies to fix this color, mainly by intramolecular copigmentation in acylated anthocyanins and complexation with metals, as in metalloanthocyanins. Blue was absent in the first paleolithic cave paintings. Those depictions were made using reds, yellows, and blacks of all hues, but no blue. In addition, blue LEDs and LASERs came later after red and green. It was only at the end of the 20th century that genetic engineering was able to create blue flowers adapted to the markets to meet consumer demands. Food and beverage producers continue to look for a natural blue as an alternative to synthetic colorants. Blue remained a second-rate color in the West for a long time. Despite that fact, in many countries blue is now the preferred color. In this review we track the appearance of blue in Nature and in the Anthropocene.

Comics, emceeing and graffiti: A graphic narrative about the relationship between hip-hop culture and comics culture

Hip-hop culture will officially turn 50 years old on 11 August 2023. This cultural movement began in a recreational room in The Bronx, New York City, and is now enjoyed throughout the world. In recognition of its upcoming half-century celebration, this article reviews the origins of hip-hop culture (e.g. hip-hop pioneers such as DJ Kool Herc, Keef Cowboy and Lovebug Starski) and the relationship its emceeing and graffiti elements have with comics culture. I begin with a brief review that demonstrates how graffiti predates hip-hop culture. This is illustrated through depictions of cave paintings, ancient Roman street art and ancient Mayan graffiti. I also highlight hobo graffiti and the graffiti from the Cholos and Bachutos gangs from twentieth-century Los Angeles, California. The introduction of the ‘Kilroy was here’ tag during the Second World War and the protest graffiti from a German anti-Nazi group are also depicted. I conclude the historical review of graffiti with an introduction to the early appearances of hip-hop-styled graffiti. Next, I present multiple historical influences on hip-hop emceeing. Examples include (but are not limited to) West African griots, enslaved Africans, Muhammad Ali, Millie Jackson, The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron. Likewise, older genres, such as funk music, blues music, jazz poetry and Black militant poetry inspired much of rap music. Afterwards, I examine the bidirectional relationship between graffiti and comics art, and emceeing and the textual/storytelling aspects of comics. This includes comics-inspired graffiti, hip-hop monikers (e.g. Big Pun, Snoop Dogg, MF Doom and Jean Grae), hip-hop lyrics (from artists such as Grandmaster Caz, Inspectah Deck, Jay-Z and The Last Emperor) and album covers. Conversely, I offer examples of how graffiti has inspired comics visuals and storytelling as well as how emceeing has inspired the comic-book storytelling and the protagonists featured in fictional and non-fictional comic book narratives.

The Upper Paleolithic rock art of Ukraine between here and nowhere

The complex of Kamyana Mohyla is the westernmost rock art location of the Eurasian Steppe and the largest accumulation of cave art sites in the Eastern Europe. So far it has been believed that the complex contains the Upper Paleolithic cave art images as well as portable art collection that resemble the instances of Upper Paleolithic worldview. Though this belief lacked the support of archaeological context and chronological attribution it remained neither proved nor disputed. However, the application of digital photogrammetric tools allowed to perform the sub-millimeter surface modeling of the rock art objects and to re-examine and reconsider the engravings that were previously attributed to Pleistocene. The modeling results presented in this article revealed the complete absence of figurative images for the collection of portable art specimens and the dubious character of those for the cave art one. Therefore, the whole collection should be reconsidered, studied and attributed according to the state of the art and contemporary archaeological record in the region. This contribution attempts to think over the possible Upper Paleolithic origin of the motifs from Kamyana Mohyla in the light of new data and proposes three hypotheses towards the understanding of the rock art assemblage from one of the caves in the complex.

The materiality of lines: The kinaesthetics of bodily movement uniting dance and prehistoric cave art

We take two seemingly disparate practices as the foci for this work—dance and prehistoric cave art—in order to illuminate commonalities in embodied practices that reveal new theoretical insights. Whereas, dance clearly uses temporal traces of the body to shape space and create meaning, cave drawings have also begun to be explained and interpreted through kinesthetic and embodied metaphorical techniques. A key element that these fields have in common is the role of lines. The study of lines has become its own field of research, largely due to Ingold's foundational work on “linealogy”. Considering the animate nature of lines and the kinesthetic response they have on the body, contemporary artistic practices can find parallels to the nature of ancient rock art if we recognize the similarity these fields share in the formation of and interpretation of meaning through movement and material engagement. Lines are a phenomenon that, when looked at as traces—memories of movement that once took place—become an organizing principle that brings distant fields like rock art and dance together. Thus, this article takes Tilley's suggestion that “a truly phenomenological study of imagery is grounded in the kinaesthetics of bodily movement” and applies it to three different artistic practices. Tilley proposes that an artifact may be ambiguous in its meaning because it relays a variety of information, which is often layered and contradictory. Here we see, in cognitive archeology, the idea that the articulation of ambiguous lines is an attempt to bring like-minded things (in the thoughts of the one drawing or dancing) together. The authors propose that the ambiguity of lines allows for a type of withness between the mind, body, and environment, allowing us to consider the mind as extended. Lastly, the nature of lines as extended mind motivate us to propose the term of “signature” in order to circumvent the dilemma of a static sign in regards to movement.

Radiocarbon Dates for Las Chimeneas (Cantabria, Spain) Palaeolithic Cave Art: Quality of Radiocarbon and Relevance to Parietal Art

AMS radiocarbon dating has been widely applied in Palaeolithic art research and its value has been proven over the past three decades. Yet it still suffers from issues that need to be discussed and analysed to improve future sampling strategies and strengthen the interpretation of the results. This study presents new AMS dates for the parietal art in Cueva de Las Chimeneas in northern Spain, describes the quality of the samples, and discusses their reliability. The joint assessment of the dates and its comparison with previously obtained dates as well as stratified and dated portable art makes it possible to put forward a hypothesis about the time of creation of the cave's parietal art and the degree of synchrony or diachrony in its production. Consequently, it is proposed that the cave art at Las Chimeneas was created in the lower Magdalenian, between 19,000 and 17,500 cal bp.

Beyond images: the external archaeological context of Palaeolithic rock art (EAC). A case study from the Nalón river basin (northern Iberia)

In this study of the location and physical characteristics of the surroundings of a series of decorated caves in the Nalón river basin in Asturias (northern Iberia), the spatial analysis, which included fieldwork and the use of GIS, has defined the external archaeological context (EAC) of pre-Magdalenian art in that area. The spatial information has been integrated with the study of the rock art in order to observe tendencies that are statistically quantifiable by means of multidimensional scaling (MDS), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and property fitting. The study of the potential association between the location of the caves and the rock art constitutes a new approach within Palaeolithic cave art research. First, the sample of decorated caves was analysed to discriminate different situations as regards the total number of representations, relative importance of figurative and non-figurative motifs, and the type of figurative representations. Second, the relationship between the EAC and graphic activity was tested. The location of the decorated caves does not fit a homogeneously distributed pattern owing to marked contrasts in the spatial variables. The greater or lesser ease of access to the location of the cave art sites does not condition the type of graphic expression. Instead, visibility is clearly associated with the total number of representations, and particularly with the number of non-figurative representations. However, this particular association between high visibility and non-figurative motifs should be nuanced because the issues of the conservation and interpretation of the exterior engravings mostly affect the identification of the figurative representations.

A study of the artistic corpus of red cave paintings in El Buxu cave (Cangas de Onís, Asturias, Spain)

El Buxu cave, which is located in the village of Cardes (Cangas de Onís, Asturias), has been studied since the 1980s, with multiple excavations taking place inside the cave. This work has uncovered a complete artistic corpus, marking out several phases of occupation, with paintings dating to the first phases of the Upper Palaeolithic, Solutrean and Lower and Middle Magdalenian periods.This paper presents a new review of its rock art, documenting all of the red paintings inside the cave, most of which have never been published up until this point. The most notable inclusion is the new description of a zoomorphic figure painted in red, which has previously been interpreted as an aurochs, but whose features are in fact closer to those of a deer or reindeer.In addition, stratigraphic analysis of some of the paintings has revealed that they are overlapped by Solutrean and Magdalenian engravings and black paintings inside the cave. Elemental analysis was performed on series of red pigments and ochre samples, recovered from various strata using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. The resulting dataset was treated using Principal Component Analysis, providing a deeper understanding of the composition of the rock art in El Buxu cave, while uncovering potential correlations between the samples according to their elemental composition.After comparing additional evidences from other red cave paintings in the region with the red pictographs in the cave, along with the stratification of paint pigments and their relationship with the ochre samples in each stratum, it appears that the red paintings comprise the oldest group of pictures inside the cave and can be broadly dated to the pre-Magdalenian cultural period.

Mechanisms of designs inspired by nature and ways to develop them

Research in the field of biometric simulation is in the design of various and various industrial products, but it still needs new studies and research that are compatible with scientific and technological development, especially in the field of computing. Recognition, deduction, and simulation of nature, for example, the use of animal bones as tools in cutting, hunting or fighting, in addition to the use of animal drawings in cave drawings as symbols of strength, as well as dance movements and face painting to simulate the natural reality that surrounds humans. This trend developed to include simulation of nature in the formal and functional aspect to reach To vocabulary and solutions that help man in his daily life, the research problem is summarized in answering some questions, including what are the methods and methods that are used in bio-simulation and how to compare them, and is it possible to reach a new mechanism, but the objectives of the research were to reveal and compare the methodologies that address Biomimetics and the possibility of reaching a new mechanism in biomimetics. As for the research results, they were summarized as follows:1- There are a number of methodological approaches that describe the way in which biomimetics are solved.2- These methods only provide the way to achieve biomimetics, and their application is subject to the designer's direction and thinking.3- It is important to study the dynamic form in detail in order to get the basic idea of the design.

From the cave to the virtual museum: accessibility and democratisation of Franco-Cantabrian Palaeolithic art

Highlights: Despite being a transcendental cultural manifestation in the history of humanity, there are hardly any open-access virtual repertoires of Palaeolithic art. The numerous photogrammetric studies carried out in successive archaeological campaigns to answer scientific questions can be used in educational and dissemination projects. In the framework of the authors’ outreach project called "PaleoArt-3D: regreso al pasado" a virtual museum has been created to make Palaeolithic art a more accessible and democratic heritage. Abstract: Palaeolithic art is a cultural manifestation of great importance to understanding the early history of our species. Through this artistic phenomenon, one can study aspects such as long-distance contacts, evidence of learning or the perception with which Palaeolithic humans were able to execute and memorise such precise details. However, there are few virtual repertoires that offer collections of Palaeolithic art. Accessibility to this type of archaeological remains is even more difficult considering conservation is prioritised over tourist visits. For these reasons, Palaeolithic art is today a type of cultural asset that is largely unknown to the population. The project "PaleoArt-3D: regreso al pasado" was created with the aim of democratising this heritage and making it more accessible. To this end, a virtual museum has been developed to exhibit digital models of parietal and portable art with complementary annotations for each one. The methodology includes a first stage dedicated to digitising examples of Palaeolithic art in caves or open-air stations and exhibited in Spanish and French museums. Next, the necessary infrastructure was designed to house the exhibition using specific software such as Blender. Post-processing tasks were carried out to reducing the number of polygons without losing quality. Finally, the museum has been uploaded to the Sketchfab platform to make it freely available online. It is hoped that this virtual museum will contribute to promoting and creating a more significant number of digital resources related to Palaeolithic art that are easily accessible to the public.

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

Narrative as Metaphor: Inquiry on the Effects of Metaphors in Narrative Paradigms

本文探討隱喻在敘說研究或敘說心理學中的關鍵作用與意涵，並從方法、方法論，再到認識論及本體論，逐層討論。在方法層次中，隱喻能在諮商中協助參考架構、世界觀之轉換，問題外化之命名等；在研究中，隱喻可協助對研究參與者故事做整體性反思，增進詮釋連貫性。在方法論層次，隱喻可協助呂格爾「三層摹擬論」的前構、形構、再構過程中之順利轉換。最後認識論及本體論層次，隱喻揭示了人所存有世界的本體性特徵，即宛若世界。此「世界」只能藉由隱喻或敘事文本來摹擬，本身就包涵「是」與「不是」的辯證性認識論。但文本摹擬之差異性或偏離性並不視為誤差，而是一種創造性，也是文本世界之生命力所在。This study addresses the key effects and meanings of metaphors in narrative studies and narrative psychology. Metaphors have importance in the development of hermeneutics, and Ricoeur studied it in the book La métaphore vive. The development of hermeneutics has two major turns. The first major turn is Wilhelm Dilthey's contributions, who made important contributions to a methodology of the humanities and other human sciences. The second major turn is that Martin Heidegger's contributions, shifted from Wilhelm Dilthey's theories. Martin Heidegger is counted among the main exponents of existentialism. Heidegger's groundbreaking work is in ontology (the philosophical study of being or existence) and metaphysics. And since then, hermeneutics has advocated detours to understand human beings that requires language or narrative text. The role of metaphors in the narrative is what this study aims to explore. The literature as well as practical counseling experiences have found different schools of counseling seem to believe that metaphors help the process of counseling. The purpose of this study is to explore how metaphors help.Also, the main approach of this study is to explore the links and important discourses between narratives and metaphors in greater depth through the review of critical literatures. The study explores how metaphors help step by step from how metaphors are applied, and from the methodology aspect, the epistemology aspect and the ontology aspect. When it comes to how metaphors are applied, metaphors stimulate transformation in reference frames, viewpoints of world, and the naming of the externalized problems, etc. In this study, metaphors stimulate the study participants to reflect on stories holistically and improve the consistency of interpretation. The role of metaphors comes from what Ricoeur called a rhetorical property. At the methodology level, metaphors have what Ricoeur called poetics, including mimesis and pictorial-semantic fusion. Therefore, metaphors stimulate the transformation process of pre-figuration, configuration, and re-figuration of Ricoeur's ＂threefold mimesis＂, which are the core frame of narrative, in the text. Also, the pictorial nature of metaphors assist in the construction and interpretation of the story. At the epistemological level, metaphors themselves contain a dialectical epistemology of ＂to be＂ and ＂not to be＂, and this dialectic helps to promote the hermeneutic circle among understanding, interpretation, and construction. It is an open circle and a creative mimesis. Finally, at the ontology level, metaphors reveal the ontological characteristics of the human beings' world - the ＂as if＂ world. This world can only be drawn up by metaphors or narrative texts. However, the difference (écart) of the texts is not regarded as an error but rather regarded as a type of creativity and liveliness of the text. Moreover, the secondary reference of metaphors and narratives, the hermeneutical detour nature of narratives, helps people move from a limited situation of unformed meaning towards a state of existence and authentic self. In other words, the ontology or existence of man reflected in metaphors or narratives is essentially the ontology of meaning construction. The so-called authentic self (Eigentlichkeit) or transcendent state is not the appearance of the real self or the given ultimate goal or answer but rather a possibility of development and a process of continuous meaning construction and becoming. In the history the earliest narrative works of human beings are cave paintings of primitive humans and related witchcraft rituals or dances. The initial imitations of these life experiences have brought about reflection and consciousness, which allows human beings to go into the world of meaning construction from the unconscious and organic world. This also allows for the birth of art and culture. Therefore, human beings are in this metaphorical and narrative-like world and can constantly construct or reconstruct meanings of life.

Common Ground

Common Ground

Re-Empowerment of Intangible Cultural Heritage under the Meta-Cosmos: The Case of Dunhuang Cave Art

Intangible cultural heritage in Dunhuang cave art is now suffering from a lack of interest feedback, insufficient social awareness, and insufficient media utilization leading to difficulties in transmission and non-transmission; this article argues whether the concept of metaverse can be combined with new media forms to re-empower Dunhuang cave art, exploring its possibilities and expecting methods of implementation. The article is based on a desktop research methodological argument to explore the empowerment of Dunhuang cave art in the context of the metaverse, which explores and builds a worldview of NFT heritage in the metaverse world and obtains offline experiences such as cultural and creative products, offline cave experiences, and NFT cultural exchanges by combining the virtual world of NFT collections, virtual tours, and virtual learning of NFT techniques in exchange for tokens. We are willing to break the barrier between reality and virtual, link the stagnation and empowerment of NFT culture. The article concludes that it is feasible and reasonable to realize the empowerment of intangible cultural heritage under the Meta-Cosmos.

The genome and diet of a 35,000-year-old Canis lupus specimen from the Paleolithic painted cave, Chauvet-Pont d'Arc, France.

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave (Ardèche, France) contains some of the oldest Paleolithic paintings recorded to date, as well as thousands of bones of the extinct cave bear, and some remains and footprints of other animals. As part of the interdisciplinary research project devoted to this reference cave site, we analyzed a coprolite collected within the deep cave. AMS radiocarbon dating of bone fragments from the coprolite yielded an age of 30,450 ± 550 RC yr. BP (AAR-19656; 36,150-34,000 cal BP), similar to ages assigned to Paleolithic artwork and cave bear remains from the same cave sector. Using high-throughput shotgun DNA sequencing, we demonstrated a high abundance of canid DNA and lesser amounts of DNA from the extinct cave bear. We interpret the sample as feces from a canid that had consumed cave bear tissue. The high amount of canid DNA allowed us to reconstruct a complete canid mitochondrial genome sequence (average coverage: 83×) belonging to a deeply divergent clade of extinct mitochondrial wolf lineages that are most closely related to coeval (~35 ka) Belgian wolves. Analysis of the nuclear genome yielded a similar coverage for the X chromosome (2.4×) and the autosomes (range: 2.3-3.2×), indicating that the Chauvet canid was a female. Comparing the relationship of the nuclear genome of this specimen with that of a variety of canids, we found it more closely related to gray wolves' genomes than to other wild canid or dog genomes, especially wolf genomes from Europe and the Middle East. We conclude that the coprolite is feces from an animal within an extinct wolf lineage. The consumption of cave bear by this wolf likely explains its intrusion into the dark cave sectors and sheds new light on the paleoecology of a major cave site.