The Cosquer cave is located in the Calanque de Morgiou

Calanque de Morgiou

The Calanque de Morgiou is one of the biggest calanques located between Marseille and Cassis.Formerly a fishing port, it is famous for the gigantic tuna fishing organized there in 1622, when the king Louis XIII paid a visit to Marseille...

 near Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, not very far from Cap Morgiou. The entrance to the cave is located 37 meters underwater, due to the rise of the Mediterranean in Paleolithic times. It was discovered by diver Henri Cosquer in 1985, but its contents were not made public until 1991, when three divers became lost in the cave and died. See the site of the French Rock Archive- Cosquer: The Cave Beneath the Sea for the history of the cave. http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/cosquer/acknowledgements.php

Description

Today, the cave can be accessed through a 175 metres (574.1 ft) long tunnel, the entrance of which is located 37 metres (121.4 ft) below the surface of the sea, because of changes in sea level since the time the cave was inhabited. The shore of the Mediterranean sea at the time the cave was occupied was then several kilometers away and many meters below the cave mouth. Sea level was lower because at that time there was an ice age and large volumes of water were retained in enormous icecaps on land, making the level of the sea 110 to 120 meters (361 to 394 ft) lower than today, affecting Mean Sea Level as calculated for approximately 20,000 years ago during the peak of the (last major glaciation).

The Art of Cosquer Cave

Four-fifths of the cave, including any art on its walls, was submerged and obliterated by the rising sea. 150 instances of cave art remain including several dozen painting and carvings dating back to the Upper Paleolithic

Upper Paleolithic

The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...

, corresponding to two different phases of occupation of the cave:

• Older drawings consisting of 65 hand stencils and other related motifs, dating to 27,000 years BP
  Before Present
  Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
  
   (the Gravettian
  Gravettian
  thumb|right|Burins to the Gravettian culture.The Gravettian toolmaking culture was a specific archaeological industry of the European Upper Palaeolithic era prevalent before the last glacial epoch. It is named after the type site of La Gravette in the Dordogne region of France where its...
  
   Era).
• Newer drawings of signs and 177 animal drawings dating to 19,000 years BP
  Before Present
  Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...
  
   (the Solutrean
  Solutrean
  The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Palaeolithic, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP.-Details:...
  
   Era), representing both "classical" animals such as bison
  Bison
  Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
  
  , ibex, and horse
  Horse
  The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
  
  s, but also marine animals such as seals
  Pinniped
  Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...
  
   and what appear to be auk
  Auk
  An auk is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. Auks are superficially similar to penguins due to their black-and-white colours, their upright posture and some of their habits...
  
  s and jellyfish
  Jellyfish
  Jellyfish are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. Medusa is another word for jellyfish, and refers to any free-swimming jellyfish stages in the phylum Cnidaria...
  
  .

External links

• Cosquer’s Cave Grotto Cosquer
• Prehistory and coastal karst area: Cosquer Cave and the “Calanques” of Marseille
• Official French Ministry of Culture pages on The Cosquer Cave
• The Cosquer Cave Prehistoric Images and Medicines Under the Sea by Jean Clottes, Jean Courtin and Luc Vanrell