NIAUX

cave at Arige, France, that is famous for its carefully drawn wall paintings in a black-outlined style typical of the classical Magdalenian period of Paleolithic art. This period is estimated to have lasted from approximately 15,000 to 10,000 BC. Niaux is one of a series of Pyrenean grottoes displaying the most stylistically homogeneous cave painting known. Like most caves, Niaux is divided into a number of distinct areas, among them the Salon Noir, which contains panels showing bison and horses drawn in outline. A few of the animals' features, such as a horse's jaw, are also indicated, and the figures are typically shaded in a cross-hatched manner. There are also depictions of fish, oxen, some variety of cat, and a beast tentatively identified as a rhinoceros. Other areas of the cave include the so-called Rotunda and the Reseau Ren Clastres, an inaccessible gallery discovered in 1970 that contains five paintings.