Preservation

The preservation of the representations on the left-hand wall of the gallery has been affected by a number of phenomena of varying significance:

• Leaching due to water flows through the cracks in the rock. These are thin flows of water from the stratification joints located at the top of the wall and seepage from fissures creating polygons at the base. Together, these are responsible for the leaching of the pigment and partial erasure of some lines. The phenomenon is most highly developed and principally affects the drawings in the Bear Panel and those located to its right, making it difficult to interpret some of the graphic entities.
• The lines are partially hidden by calcite flows – a calcite veil in the case of the Black Mammoth – or by the presence of clays from sediments from the top of the wall (Isolated Red Lion to the right of the Black Mammoth).

These mechanisms are representative of the taphonomic processes identified in the cave as a whole on the basis of macroscopic observations, photographs and cartographic surveys. This study has shown that water flows are particularly marked on either side of the rocky pendant separating the Cactus Gallery from the Red Panels Gallery, on the Panel of the Red Bear and the Panel of the Signs. It is, therefore, in this sector that the designs are most likely to disappear entirely.