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p. 11-12
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1Another colloquium on Lascaux?
2After the all literature, opinions and images published over the last sixty years, we could imagine that this subject would be exhausted. This publication, however, proposes an entirely new approach, following from the international symposium organized in Paris by the Ministry of Culture and Communication in February 2009. In the context of the crisis and controversies surrounding Lascaux Cave over the past few years, the objectives of this symposium were both simple and ambitious: to inform, debate and anticipate.
3First, to inform. Implicated in the conservation of the cave since its classification as a Historic Monument in December 1940, the Ministry openly and freely presented its archives, records, photos and scientific analyses, including their methods and results. In addition, several of the contributions published here precisely define the stages in this history and provide the sources necessary to understand them.
4Then, to debate. The decision made by UNESCO in 1979 to register Lascaux Cave and other sites in the Vezere Valley on the World Heritage List transformed this quiet corner of France into a universal cultural property. This enormous responsibility led us seek the widest possible collaborations with experts from around the world. All responded positively to the invitation of the Ministry of Culture and Communication in Paris, which assembled twenty or so specialists from ten countries. To honor their knowledge, the program of this symposium was conceived to allow exactly the same amount of time for debates as for the presentations themselves. This initiative was praised by all the participants who appreciated the opportunity it provided for comparisons, criticisms, contestations and confrontations between the protagonists, past and present, in the preservation of the Lascaux Cave. The careful transcription of the debates, whose reading we recommend, restores the vigor, and sometimes disaccord, of these exchanges. They recreate the atmosphere of the auditorium, in which more than two hundred and fifty participants, a mix of defenders and detractors, deliberated over the course of these two days, expressing themselves with a total freedom of speech.
5And finally, to anticipate. This should be nothing to boast about—being the general rule of public action—if it were not at the heart of our problems. A forced evaluation of the past years leads those responsible to act with the greatest caution; but what can be done when “opposed” cultures clash the moment they are required to evaluate future deteriorations and imagine unknown remedies? Here are two examples.
6At Lascaux, as in other endangered cavities, we must reconcile the need for experimentation in a sensitive and complex subterranean environment with that of avoiding all risks for the preservation of the site. We must test all new procedures at the same time as we must ensure that the original substance will not be lost. In the contributions published here, we will discover the innovative hypotheses of young researchers alongside the studies conducted by established laboratories. The postulate of this symposium was that a collective effort in good faith would allow us to go beyond the misunderstandings between foreign disciplines: the debates proved this to be true, thus facilitating comparisons between countries.
7We must also manage the intermingling of different time scales, that of a crisis, which triggers both urgency and controversy, and that of research, which is long, hesitant, modest, and must favor interrogation over certitude. The attentive reader of this publication will detect these moments of confrontation, in which the president of the symposium, as well as researchers familiar with the cave, sincerely express the weight of the responsibility implied in each of the decisions they are forced to implement or recommend.
8The greatest challenge is to avoid being subsumed by the juxtaposition of expert opinions, and to rather succeed at juggling the complexity of the data to be treated in order to acquire a global vision. The texts in this publication, presented in French and English, attest to the motivation of the men and women responsible for the preservation of Lascaux Cave, their efforts to generously offer the foundations of their current ideas and to share this exceptional heritage with all of humanity—in order to better ensure its future.
9Isabelle Balsamo,
Director of the Department of Inspection of Heritage of the Ministry of Culture and Communication
First morning session of the symposium: general view of the attendees in the Colbert auditorium.

© D. Plowy
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Lascaux et la conservation en milieu souterrain
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Lascaux et la conservation en milieu souterrain
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