Archeociel : Chantal Jègues Wolkiewiez
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 Welcome to the site of Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez, independent researcher, PhD in Humanities, Anthropologist, Ethno-astronomer and psychologist

This site presents the main results obtained during fifteen years of investigations. First, since 1992, it was the Vallée des Merveilles, a site full of cave engravings from the Chalcolithic period and from the Ancient Bronze Age, located in the Maritime-Alps. Later, starting from 1998, a study of the caves and Paleolithic ornamented shelters in France (Ornamented caves and shelters Atlas), and other different caves recently discovered.

My works belong to the Archeoastronomy and ethno-astronomy domains. Through several studies together with geographical and astronomical orientation measurements made in the field, which were later related with the specific celestial coordinates of each period, these disciplines succeeded to establish the observations and celestial knowledge achieved by the human groups that created the works founded in the site.
About archeoastronomy: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/cfaar_as.html 

My researches tend to prove that as well as the Paleolithic works date from 35000 years ago (the Blanchard shelter bone in Sergeac en Dordogne), the works founded in the Vallée des Merveilles show precise and meticulous observations of the solar, lunar and stellar cycles. They reveal unsuspected astronomical knowledge in periods as ancient as the Aurignacienne era. All this knowledge was indispensable for the survival of Occidental Europe’s first habitants. It allowed them, for example, to anticipate season changes with the deriving modifications in their vital environment as animal migration.

However, beyond that, these parietal works, furniture, caves, could reveal the link between the sequence of seasonal celestial cycles and the foundational myths of the Indo-European civilizations, myths that we will find later in ancient Egypt or in Mesopotamia, Greece, Etruria and more.

By presenting here my results I wish sincerely that they will be discussed, verified or infirmed. I hope above all that these hypotheses will serve as parting points for future interdisciplinary works, carried over by other people. When coming to the hyper-specialization of researches, these works will be able to conciliate between two disciplines that tend to ignore and even turn their backs on each other: The astronomy and the prehistory, on the expense of the comprehension of the major sites of our prehistoric patrimony. Can a future dialogue contribute to the discovering of the meaning of the deep mystery bequeathed by our ancestors in the form of signs, painted animals, engraved or sculptured in the depths of the ornamented caves…

I would like to thank all the scientists and sites owners for allowing me to have the access to all these fascinating research fields and to the researches from the different disciplines that believed in my capacity for getting onto these questions with the double vision of an ethnologist and astronomer, even though I do not belong to any research laboratory. Following their suggestions, their lectures, critics of my studies or articles, and the conversations we had, they helped me to progress on the difficult path of the comprehension of our ancestor’s astronomic motivations. I’m thinking about: Emannuel Anati, CCSP’s Director, Capo di Ponte, Italy; Christian Archambeau, Dordogne’s regional curator; René Castanet and his grand-daughter Isabelle, Pre-historians and owners of the Castel-Merle site; Jean Clottes, Patrimony General Curator; Christine and Hubert de Commarque owners of the Commarque caves and castle; Annie Echassoux, Maritime-Alps departmental archeologist; Pierre Erny, Ethnologist; The Corte Faculty and the Ajaccio amateur astronomers, who created the ARKEORB program: Antoine Ottavi, François Radureau and Jean-Pierre Boyer. Jean-Michel Geneste, Lascaux’s cave curator, and Prehistory National Director; Brian Hayden, Archeologist of the Simon Fraser University; Jean-Pierre Jardel, Professor of  Ethnology Laboratory  of Nice Sophia Antipolis, Gérard Jasniewicz, Languedoc Astronomy and Astrophysics research group Director; Jean Michel Le Contel, Astronomer, CNRS research director; Yannick Le Guillou, Pre-historian, Mid-Pyrennees curator; Henry de Lumley, Archeologist, Natural History Museum’s Director; Jean Malaurie, Geographer, arctic studies director for EHESS; Catherine Schwab, Paleolithic collections Director in the National Antiquity Museum; Robert Triomphe, Linguistic.

Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez, France

Abstracts and Publications (Paleolithic period)

- “Lascaux, View of the Magdalenian Sky” Abstract: In 1999, it was found that the setting sun during the summer solstice entered the cave, illuminating the paintings on this one occasion in the year, a revolutionary discovery for the perception of this art, which was considered above all as art that existed in the darkness. It was also calculated that the paintings in the Lascaux cave were the image of the Palaeolithic sky.

Publication: Val Camonica 2000 Symposium of Cave Art, Italy. “Lascaux, View of the Magdalenian Sky”, Prehistoric and tribal art, Conserving and safeguarding messages, 10/11/2000.

- “Chronology of the orientation of painted caves and shelters in the French Palaeolithic”
Abstract : Measurements of 130 caves in the south of France showed that all are oriented in the direction of important solar points: sunrise and sunset at summer and winter solstice and spring and autumn equinox. It was also showed a relationship between the way in which some animals were painted (fur colour, erection) and the season when the sun illuminated the cave: summer for animals painted with a summer coat, winter for animals with winter coats.

Publication: Val Camonica 2007 Symposium of Cave Art, Italy. “Chronology of the orientation of painted caves and shelters in the French Palaeolithic” (pages 225-239), 19/05/2007.

- “The roots of astronomy, or the hidden order of a Palaeolithic work”
Abstract : Measurements on a small bone, with 69 engraved incisions made 32,000 years ago in the “Abri Blanchard”, Dordogne, associated with calculations of the moon’s position in the Palaeolithic sky, showed that the 69 incisions corresponded to the trajectory of the moon over a 69-day period. This is an important revelation, that indicates astronomical knowledge in very ancient periods: it was hitherto thought that the origins of astronomy were to be found in Babylonian culture, 6000 years ago.

Publication: “The roots of astronomy, or the hidden order of a Palaeolithic work” (in Les Antiquités Nationales, tome 37 pages 43 - 52), February 2007.

" Whilst other animals lean towards the soil and only have eyes for it, man (the creator) turns his face towards the sky which proposes to him the contemplation and invites him to raise his vision towards the stars "
(Ovid, Metamorphosis, I.V. 84-86)