Between police investigation and fiction story, an ethnologist-astronomer narrates the creation of prehistoric astronomy from engravings on the walls of the cave Lascaux. And if Lascaux, is the Sistine Chapel of prehistory, was in fact a temple dedicated to the constellations?
Some 25.000 years before the proven origins of astronomy, our Cro-Magnon ancestors used to observe the complicated movements of the sun, the moon and the shifting of the main constellations. In order to note down the astronomic knowledge, they painted animals in the dark caves, such as Lascaux, one of the most beautifully decorated caves.
That revolutionary hypothesis comes to reverse our up-to-date ideas concerning the beginning of art, knowledge and beliefs of prehistoric people. By giving life to their habits and rituals, unearthing major ancient sites of rupestrian art, the film becomes a fascinating journey through time. Bringing this new theory into debate by the top specialists, it invites the viewer to an exciting research, from caves, ornamented rock-shelters, prehistory museums, research laboratories and planetaria.
- Direction: STEPHANE BEGOIN, VINCENT TORDIEU, PEDRO LIMA
- Production: ARTE FRANCE, BONNE PIOCHE
