Lascaux is a cave in southwest France. About 17,500 years ago, people painted animals and hunters on its walls — horses, bulls, deer — in colours that still look alive. The paintings were found in 1940, and they changed how we picture very early humans: these were not simple scratches, but careful, huge pictures deep in a dark cave. So many visitors came that the air and the lights began to damage the paint, and the real cave is now closed. What most people visit is a careful copy nearby. Lascaux is a place name, so it keeps a capital L. You will meet it in history and art classes, and in any talk about the oldest pictures humans made.

拉斯科洞穴