Here's a report from the New York Times on the continuing problems afflicting the Magdalenian cave paintings at Lascaux, which are in danger of sustaining permanent an irreparable damage because the micro-climate that protected them was effectively destroyed when the caves were discovered back in 1940. This from NYT...No consensus has emerged among experts over whether the invading patches of gray and black mold are the result of climate change, a defective temperature control system, the light used by researchers or the carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors.
But after inspection by a team of microbiologists, the government has approved a new treatment of the blemishes with a fungicide and ordered that the cave be sealed off for as long as four months so that its delicate environment can be stabilized.
The longer term solution sounds as though it may be necessary to try and stabilise the interior environment, and then seal the cave on a more or less permanent basis. In common with Altamira in Cantabria, there is a replica of the site, in this instance called Lascaux II, where the public can view copies of the paintings from inside the caves, whereas the Chauvet caves, discovered back in the mid 1990s, have never been open to the public, and as far as I know, the paintings and drawings there are still in good condition. More on the current crisis at Lascaux...In the real cave, new problems arose in 2001, when officials in charge of Lascaux decided to modernize the system regulating the temperature and humidity. Soon after this work was completed, a white mold, later identified as a fungus called fusarium solani, began spreading rapidly across the cave ceiling and walls.
At first, the blame fell on the new air-conditioning unit and the clothing of the workers who installed it. Later studies suggested that the fungus was probably already in the cave, although it might have been awakened by the movement of workers and a related rise in humidity. “The work was perhaps one of the factors,” said Jean-Michel Geneste, the chief curator. “Near the entrance, the soil was disturbed to lay cables for the monitoring instruments.”
Some experts have pointed to climate change as a factor. Mr. Geneste said it might be too early to make such a claim. But he added that in the past two decades, a small rise in temperature and carbon dioxide had been detected in a number of caves in France. “And the average soil temperature in areas around the caves has risen by two degrees centigrade since 1982,” he said, adding that Lascaux is especially sensitive because it is small and not deep.
A 2C degree increase in soil temperatures in just 25 years tells it own story, whilst the temperature inside the caves has risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit, and any further rises in local temperatures can only spell more trouble for the endangered paintings in Lascaux, as well as for other caves not sufficiently deep and protected from the outside world.
The new problem at Lascaux, however, does not appear to be linked to the fusarium fungus. Described by experts as black stains, the blemishes are in fact both gray and black. “They vary from a few millimeters to 4 centimeters,” said Mr. Geneste, noting that most are found in the passages where the rocks are most porous and paintings had faded the most long before modern man entered. While only a few stains have affected the paintings, they have now been found in some 70 different spots.
Alarm bells were first sounded by a French science journal, La Recherche, in 2003, and subsequently by the International Committee for Preservation of Lascaux, which is based in the United States. In a statement last December the committee warned of the rapid spread of black spots, which are now appearing where the traces of the fusarium fungus had been removed by scalpels.
Four months later the committee blasted the ineptitude of those charged with protecting Lascaux and said the bacterial and fungus infection inside the cave was not under control. Two weeks ago, the International Scientific Committee for Lascaux decided to try new methods. “Every treatment we have applied had its own side-effects,” said Anne Marie Sire, the curator responsible for interventions in French caves. “We cannot touch the figures with scalpels or chemicals, so now we will try to diffuse a treatment in the air.”
It is clear that preserving the paintings is very much a learning process, though whether the lessons learnt at Lascaux can be applied to other locations where rock art is deteriorating, isn't clear - until the specific causes are known, effective remedial action will be difficult to initiate.
French Ministry of Culture - The Cave Of Lascaux
The Guardian - "This is my mark...this is man (humankind)"
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