It's easy to make up eye-catching stories about the past, by imaginatively stringing together a few facts, but is it science?
Whispers of the Ancients
Deep within the labyrinthine recesses of the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, where the air hung thick with the scent of damp stone and ancient fires, an eight-year-old girl ventured forth. The elders had warned her — that part of the cave was forbidden. It was where the spirits of the great beasts dwelled, where their whispers echoed through the dark, and where even the bravest hunters dared not tread alone.
But the girl was no hunter—yet. And she was not alone.
By her side padded a massive wolf, its dark fur bristling as it moved with quiet confidence. They had grown together, these two—child and beast—inseparable since infancy, their bond forged in the flickering light of the hearth. The wolf was full-grown now, but the girl was still small, still fragile, her feet unsteady on the slick cave floor. Yet she pressed on, curiosity outweighing caution.
The torch in her hand sputtered as she stepped deeper into the shadows, its flame fed by a crude bundle of dried bark fibres and animal fat. The light danced across the walls, bringing to life the spirits of their ancestors—painted bison, galloping horses, towering mammoths—all shifting and writhing as if breathing. The girl had seen these images many times, had heard the shaman’s tales of how they held the souls of the animals her people hunted. But tonight, they seemed different. More alive. Watching.
Her wolf moved ahead, silent, its keen senses attuned to something unseen. The girl’s bare feet left faint imprints in the cool clay, slipping now and then, leaving streaks where she caught herself. Her companion, ever sure-footed, made no such mistakes. Their prints ran parallel, weaving through the traces of cave bears long gone—the ghosts of the great beasts that had once roamed this cavern.
The girl hesitated when they reached the sacred chamber. This was the place of the bear skulls, the relics only the shaman was permitted to touch. They lay in a solemn cluster, their empty sockets staring into the void.
Her breath quickened. Her heart hammered in her chest.
She should not be here.
But defiance burned in her veins. She had come to see for herself—to know if the spirits were real, if the old stories were true.
Her wolf was close, its body warm against her leg. Taking a deep breath, the girl stretched out his hand.
The skull was cold beneath her fingertips. Cold and still. Just a bone, nothing more. She nudged it gently. It rolled over, the hollow eye sockets now staring at the ceiling. She exhaled.
Nothing to see here.
A chuckle—, nervous, soft, breathless—escaped her lips. The great spirits, the vengeful ghosts of the cave bears? They were nothing but stories.
But then…
A whisper of air. A sound—a shift in the darkness behind her.
She stiffened.
She felt it then—the sensation of being watched. A prickling at the nape of her neck, an unseen presence pressing against the edges of her senses. The torchlight flickered. The shadows stretched.
Smelling the girl's fears, hher wolf growled low, deep in its throat.
She swallowed.
No.She would not be afraid. She had touched the skull, had defied the warnings, and still she stood, unharmed. She turned, inhaled deeply, and began the walk back, her companion at his side. The feeling of pursuit clung to her, an eerie weight in the darkness, but she refused to acknowledge it.
Se had her wolf. Her protector. Her oldest friend.
And the spirits, if they were real at all, could do nothing against the bond of the living.
Deep within the labyrinthine recesses of the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, where the air hung thick with the scent of damp stone and ancient fires, an eight-year-old girl ventured forth. The elders had warned her — that part of the cave was forbidden. It was where the spirits of the great beasts dwelled, where their whispers echoed through the dark, and where even the bravest hunters dared not tread alone.
But the girl was no hunter—yet. And she was not alone.
By her side padded a massive wolf, its dark fur bristling as it moved with quiet confidence. They had grown together, these two—child and beast—inseparable since infancy, their bond forged in the flickering light of the hearth. The wolf was full-grown now, but the girl was still small, still fragile, her feet unsteady on the slick cave floor. Yet she pressed on, curiosity outweighing caution.
The torch in her hand sputtered as she stepped deeper into the shadows, its flame fed by a crude bundle of dried bark fibres and animal fat. The light danced across the walls, bringing to life the spirits of their ancestors—painted bison, galloping horses, towering mammoths—all shifting and writhing as if breathing. The girl had seen these images many times, had heard the shaman’s tales of how they held the souls of the animals her people hunted. But tonight, they seemed different. More alive. Watching.
Her wolf moved ahead, silent, its keen senses attuned to something unseen. The girl’s bare feet left faint imprints in the cool clay, slipping now and then, leaving streaks where she caught herself. Her companion, ever sure-footed, made no such mistakes. Their prints ran parallel, weaving through the traces of cave bears long gone—the ghosts of the great beasts that had once roamed this cavern.
The girl hesitated when they reached the sacred chamber. This was the place of the bear skulls, the relics only the shaman was permitted to touch. They lay in a solemn cluster, their empty sockets staring into the void.
Her breath quickened. Her heart hammered in her chest.
She should not be here.
But defiance burned in her veins. She had come to see for herself—to know if the spirits were real, if the old stories were true.
Her wolf was close, its body warm against her leg. Taking a deep breath, the girl stretched out his hand.
The skull was cold beneath her fingertips. Cold and still. Just a bone, nothing more. She nudged it gently. It rolled over, the hollow eye sockets now staring at the ceiling. She exhaled.
Nothing to see here.
A chuckle—, nervous, soft, breathless—escaped her lips. The great spirits, the vengeful ghosts of the cave bears? They were nothing but stories.
But then…
A whisper of air. A sound—a shift in the darkness behind her.
She stiffened.
She felt it then—the sensation of being watched. A prickling at the nape of her neck, an unseen presence pressing against the edges of her senses. The torchlight flickered. The shadows stretched.
Smelling the girl's fears, hher wolf growled low, deep in its throat.
She swallowed.
No.She would not be afraid. She had touched the skull, had defied the warnings, and still she stood, unharmed. She turned, inhaled deeply, and began the walk back, her companion at his side. The feeling of pursuit clung to her, an eerie weight in the darkness, but she refused to acknowledge it.
Se had her wolf. Her protector. Her oldest friend.
And the spirits, if they were real at all, could do nothing against the bond of the living.
Well, that the impression you get from a story currently doing the rounds of the social media. I must work it up into a full-length novel some time.
Of course we have no real idea how human and animal footprints came to be made deep in a French cave, but one thing we know is that the original peer-review publication made no claims that boy and 'dog' travelled together into the cave, so, though they are undoubtedly the tracks of a large canid, such as a wolf, there is no real evidence that they were made by a domesticated dog, or even that they travelled together.
The original 2005 publication, in French, in Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 102-1 pp. 103-108 says:
Résumé:The way this piece of archaeology is being treated, including the claim that we have the date of domestication of dogs all wrong, seems targeted at the science sceptics who like news that science has got it wrong again.
L'ichnologie, discipline réactualisée dès 1971 par le Dr Léon Pales, offre un intéressant éclairage à l'étude globale de la cavité. L'étude des empreintes humaines et animales, des traces de griffades d'ours, des traces charbonneuses, des traces de raclage et des traces de chauffe permet de mieux comprendre la fréquentation humaine et animale de la grotte Chauvet. L'analyse de ces différentes traces contribue à la reconstitution des comportements des hommes et des animaux qui ont fréquenté la cavité, ainsi qu'à la compréhension des processus taphonomiques ayant affecté les parois et le sol de la grotte.
Translation:
Ichnology, a discipline revitalized since 1971 by Dr. Léon Pales, provides an interesting perspective on the comprehensive study of the cavity. The examination of human and animal footprints, bear claw marks, charcoal traces, scraping marks, and heat-induced traces enhances our understanding of human and animal visitation in the Chauvet Cave. Analyzing these various traces contributes to reconstructing the behaviours of humans and animals that frequented the cave, as well as understanding the taphonomic processes that have affected the cave's walls and floor.
But that's not to say the child and wolf could not have travelled together into the cave, and we may indeed have the earliest date of dog domestication wrong. It is entirely possible that wolves were domesticated several times in different places, so, although this may have been a tame wolf, it doesn't necessarily imply systematic domestication.
A nice story, but one which needs to be treated with scepticism to disentangle the science fiction from the science fact.
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