On December 18, 1994, three French spelunkers discovered a new cave in Southwestern France. In the cave were animal bones and on the walls were beautiful drawings of animals. Some of the pictures were several hundred meters inside the cave. There were pictures of giant bears, panthers, bisons and rhinoceroses.

Experts felt, because of the quality of the pictures, that they were newer than the 15,000 year old drawings found in the Lascaux Cave. It was felt that they were the end of evolution in art from more primitive art to these pictures. Carbon dating of several samples of the charcoal used to create the drawings gave surprising results. The drawings in this new cave, now called the Chauvet Cave, were 30,000 years old.

Like many other caves of the Paleolithic Period, there are no pictures of humans. It appears that the pictures are art for art's sake. Because these drawings are so far into the cave, they had to be drawn and later seen with the use of a torch. There are many torch marks on the ceiling of the cave. The drawings do not depict hunts so much as scenes of the animals fighting or migrating.