The Lascaux cave paintings of southwestern France sat sealed beneath a hillside for 17,000 years before being discovered in September 1940 — when an 18-year-old French boy walking his dog watched the dog disappear down a hole left by an uprooted tree, climbed in after, and found himself surrounded by walls of painted bulls and horses

Robot the dog never received an entry in the historical record. The four teenagers who descended into the Lascaux cave on 12 September 1940 are, by every formal account of the discovery — including those issued by the French Ministry of Culture and by the official archaeological documentation of the site — credited as the [...] The post The Lascaux cave paintings of southwestern France sat sealed beneath a hillside for 17,000 years before being discovered in September 1940 — when an 18-year-old