Q 01/05

Which animal, the main food of Lascaux's painters judging by bones left in the cave, is almost absent from its walls?

A) Mammoths

B) Wild boar

C) Reindeer

D) Ibexes

Answer · why

C) Reindeer

Reindeer bones and antlers were left all over the cave, yet a lone figure in the Apse is the only one pictured: the walls were no menu.

Q 02/05

Which animal is pictured most often at Lascaux, with more than 360 examples, far ahead of aurochs and ibexes?

A) Horses

B) Mammoths

C) Cave lions

D) Wolves

Answer · why

A) Horses

Horses make up well over half of the precisely identified animals, and overlapping figures show they were always painted first.

Q 03/05

In the best-known account of how Lascaux was found in 1940, which animal first led its owner to the hidden entrance?

A) A pig

B) A dog

C) A goat

D) A ferret

Answer · why

B) A dog

A dog nosing at a hole left by an uprooted tree drew its owner to the spot, though the cave's official history mentions only a foxes' den.

Q 04/05

Who found the painted cave of Lascaux in September 1940 after squeezing down a narrow hole on a hillside?

A) Two parish priests

B) A team of quarrymen

C) Soldiers on patrol

D) Four teenage boys

Answer · why

D) Four teenage boys

Four teenage boys, led by apprentice mechanic Marcel Ravidat, slid down the shaft and explored the passages by a makeshift light.

Q 05/05

Lascaux closed to tourists in 1963 after 1,200 daily visitors raised levels of which damaging gas?

A) Carbon dioxide

B) Carbon monoxide

C) Sulphur dioxide

D) Nitrogen oxide

Answer · why

A) Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide, heat and humidity from the crowds had visibly damaged the paintings within seven years of the cave's opening.