The "Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Decorated Cave" was placed on the Unesco World Heritage List on 22 June 2014, at the Heritage Committee in Qatar.
This Unesco status applies to the whole cave, the surrounding natural landscape and the cave's groundwater basin, including the natural arch of Pont-d'Arc.
Selection criteria:
- Criterion (i): to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius
Unique and exceptional example of human creative genius in the Upper Palaeolithic, it leads us to question data on artistic and symbolic practices in this early period of human history.
- Criterion (iii): to bear a unique testimony to a civilisation which has disappeared
The most important known testimony to date on passage in the caves decorated in the Upper Palaeolithic and on Aurignacian civilisation, it is a mine of information on the paleo-fauna of the period, particularly cave bears, a now disappeared species.
Implications
International recognition and visibility
Mobilisation of the research community to study underground landscapes and cave art on a global scale
Sharing and transmission to future generations
Bringing together all the actors for concerted action with scientific, cultural, tourist, economic and land planning implications, etc.