Assessment of 14 carbon dates made on charcoal from Chauvet cave

After a brief presentation of the experimental protocols, this article discusses the results of the C-14 dates obtained from charcoal specimens collected on the walls (drawings and torch-wipes) and on the ground of the Chauvet Cave. The dates, which are coherent, can be divided into two periods a few millennia apart: between 33000 and 29000 C-14 years BP (33 samples including the five parietal representations) and between 27000 and 24500 C-14 years BP (13 samples including the four torch-wipes).