The Cave Explorer How a Boy and His Dog Made an Amazing Prehistoric Discovery

About this book

Explore the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux and the story of the boy and his dog who rediscovered them in this stunningly illustrated, fact-filled book for curious young readers.

Have you ever wondered what life was like for the human beings who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago? What stories did they tell one another? What stories would they want to tell us?

One day in 1940, a young boy named Marcel Ravidat was walking his dog, Robot, near his home in southwestern France. When Robot found a strange hole near an upturned tree, Marcel and his friends rushed in to explore and find some hidden treasure. But the treasure they found was like nothing they had ever expected – prehistoric paintings and carvings that covered the walls of an underground cave, and that told the story of the palaeolithic people who had once called this place home.

This rediscovered cave was an important historical find, and the artefacts and paintings inside helped archaeologists and anthropologists piece together what life must have been like for humans living hundreds of thousands of years ago. Little did Marcel know that the mystery of why these paintings were created and what stories the artists were depicting would continue to capture our imaginations as we still debate their meaning today.

Beautifully illustrated by emerging talent Kate Winter, with incredible panoramic fold-out pages, this is a book to treasure and to read again and again, perfect for all fans of natural history and curious young explorers.

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Biography

Kate Winter currently lives in Cambridge, England. She studied a BA in Fine Art at the Slade in London and then an MA in Children's Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. Her MA project about the discovery of prehistoric cave painting won the 2019 Ronald Searle Award for Creativity, came runner up in the 2019 Batsford Prize and was highly commended in the 2020 V&A Student Illustration Awards. Kate's debut book, an illustrated biography of Mary Anning called The Fossil Hunter won the 2024 Klaus Flugge Prize. Kate loves history and real-life stories and wants to bring them to life for children, giving them access to explore the past through imagery and mysterious tales.