https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3570-3104
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ABSTRACT
Immersive digital technologies and 3D models are changing the way in which archaeology and heritage are presented to the public. Here we consider the role of physical 3D replicas and the values they hold vis-à-vis digital reproductions. We begin with a consideration of conceptions of ‘real’ versus ‘fake’ and the evolving history of academic notions of ‘authenticity’. Then we explore a particularly significant recent case study, the creation of the replica known as the Cave of Chauvet 2, France. We discuss the choices underlying its construction, its selected characteristics and the intended experience that is offered to visitors. Our aim is to consider the manner in which visitors perceive the replica. Our research findings are based on interviews conducted with visitors and staff at the Cave of Chauvet 2 and observations of visitor management at the site (2016, 2017). We focus our discussion around the visitor experience of authenticity, the extent to which the replica has proven able to stand in place of the original. Our results proved surprising: over 90% of visitors gained an authentic heritage experience and, for many, the replica created a state of hyperreality in which they subconsciously meshed reality with simulation.
Acknowledgments
We thank Jules Kemper and Françoise Prud’homme for the quality of their reviewing as well as the two anonymous reviewers of this paper. We also tank Xavier Meyer for his work into data processing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Sources
Syndicat Mixte de l’Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. 2009. Dossier de presse – présentation du site et du projet retenus pour l’implantation de l’Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet-Pontd’Arc, conférence de presse du 26 juin 2009.
Syndicat Mixte de l’Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. 2011. La grotte ornée Chauvet Pont-d’Arc. Tome 2: plan de gestion.
Syndicat Mixte de l’Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. 2012. La grotte Chauvet Pont d’Arc, Dossier de presse « Pose de la Première main – Espace de restitution ».
Syndicat Mixte de l’Espace de Restitution de la Grotte Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc. 2014. Dossier de Presse, La Grotte ornée du Pont d’Arc dite grotte Chauvet, joyau de l’humanité.
Notes
1. http://archeologie.culture.fr/fr, consulted on 25/07/2018.
2. Since 2002, the southern Ardèche is one of the regions studied by several members of the EDYTEM laboratory in France with the aim to analyze the effects of Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave replica on the reformulation of the heritage and tourism dynamics of the southern-Ardèche region. This research has involved at least twenty field studies (one or two annual sessions of two to three weeks on average) composed of field observations, semi-structured interviews, grey literature analysis, and visitor surveys (Duval, Gauchon, and Smith Citation2017; Malgat, Duval, and Gauchon Citation2015, Citation2012; Duval and Gauchon Citation2013; Cachat, Duval, and Gauchon Citation2012; Gauchon Citation2009). Since 2015, a new collaboration has been developed with the University of Western Australia through the Phd research of Laura Mayer (Citation2019). Drawing on the previous research, the results presented in this article are based on data recently collected through the research program ‘Singulariser les Territoires de Montagne,’ funded by the Labex Item. This program has enabled us to conduct a survey of visitors to the replica in August 2016 and August 2017, as well as a series of semi-structured interviews with the regional stakeholders in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
3. The translation of quotations originally published in French is our own.
6. Even if it is suggested, such as by the Cave of Chauvet 2 web site (https://www.grottechauvet2ardeche.com/preparez-visite-caverne-pont-arc-grotte-chauvet/; consulted on 22/02/2019), to begin with the Aurignacian Gallery, most visitors start with the replica.
7. https://www.ledauphine.com/ardeche/2019/04/05/alban-de-goulaine-nouveau-directeur-de-la-replique-de-la-grotte-chauvet, consulted on 06/04/2019.
8. http://www.interpret-europe.net/feet/home/consulted the 22/02/2019.
9. https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sciences/je-pensais-que-la-grotte-chauvet-serait-incopiable-mais-on-l-a-fait_857603.html, consulted on 25/07/2018.
10. Since summer 2018, two new light scenographies were installed at stations 6 and 10. These are meant to reproduce the lighting of a torch and a grease-lamp. Because our visitor surveys were made before these innovations (summers of 2016 and 2017), the visitor’s feelings about them are not addressed in this article. See also the article, « De nouvelles lumières pour la fresque des Lions à la Caverne », published 05/07/2018 in the Tribune, http://www.e-tribune.fr/index.php/le-mag/13483-de-nouvelles-lumieres-pour-la-fresques-des-lions-a-la-caverne, consulted on 25/09/2018.
11. Starting in summer 2016, one year after the opening of the replica to avoid the disturbance caused by the proximity of other groups. Each visitor wears a headset set to the frequency of the microphone of their guide.
12. For foreign tourists, guided visits in English, German and Dutch are offered at set times. If they cannot attend these visits, they can follow a French visit with an audio-guide playing a prerecorded discourse in their own language. The two visit types, a guided visit with direct commentaries (type 1) versus a visit with a pre-recorded audio-guide (type 2), do not produce the same experience. Even if the framework is identical, listening to a pre-recorded audio-guide creates a lag between the discourse presented at the same time by the French guide. The panels are not always explained in the same order, and the timing of the pre-recorded discourse is not the same as that of the guide.
13. The guides at the replica (around 50 throughout the year and 80 in the summer season) have very different backgrounds, such as history (mostly Medieval specialists), art history, tourism, general scientific guiding, or completely different sectors. Among all of them, only around a dozen have a background in prehistory. When the guides are hired, they must attend a four-day training session consisting of a general introduction to prehistory with some concentration on the Aurignacian culture and parietal art of Chauvet Cave. During this (short) period, they also accompany guides already working in the replica so that they may appropriate the discourses and guiding techniques already used. From this foundation, and also drawing from their own life experiences and education, they will gradually construct their own discourse.
14. The choice of individuals was made to match the visitor profile of the replica: 80% of the visitors are French (followed by Belgians, Dutch, and English and German in smaller numbers). Only individuals that had visited the site with a live guide (Type 1) were interviewed. We did not try to understand the experience of the replica by non-French persons who visited with a pre-recorded audio-guide, and we accept that this might be different.
15. The number of individuals (70) does not permit a quantitative approach, which would in any case have had little significance for this exploration of visitor perceptions. The percentages given here are meant to contextualize the results of the investigation and cannot be extrapolated to represent all visitors to the replica. All the visitors interviewed came from outside the Gorges of Ardèche: 60% are women and 40% are men. The age range is balanced: 30–35 years, 13%, 35–40 years, 20%, 40–45 years, 17%, 45–50 years, 13%, 50–55 years, 11%, 55–60 years and, 13%, 60–65 years, 13%. The surveys were conducted during the summer season and thus did not include interviews of many French seniors who typically travel in spring and fall. Twenty-five percent of the visitors were excursionists (18 persons) and came specifically to the Ardèche for a one day to visit the Cave of Chauvet 2. For some, this was their first visit to the area (30%; 6 persons), or a stop on their vacation route (30%; 5 persons). The remaining 40% of the excursionists (7 persons) often came to the Ardèche for the day to visit sites or hike (most from Lyon, located 2 hours away by car). For one-quarter of the persons interviewed, the Chauvet replica was their motivation for coming to the Ardèche. For the others, individuals spending at least one night in the area and representing 75% of the persons interviewed, the replica was one activity among others during their stay of a few days (20%), up to one week (40%), two to three weeks (12%).
16. Among the 5 persons who did not have what we define as a true ‘heritage experience’, three of them were the subject of very short interviews (5 minutes) and the information collected may not have been sufficient. The two remaining people were genuinely frustrated by the lack of ambiance in the cave (FR 58) and the timing of the visit (FR_24), these two factors greatly limited the quality of their experience.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Mélanie Duval
Mélanie Duval Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, EDYTEM, 73370 Bourget-du-Lac, France; Rock Art Research Institute, GAES, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; melanie.[email protected]
Mélanie Duval is a senior researcher at the Edytem UMR 5204 CNRS Laboratory (University of Savoie Mont Blanc, France) and an honorary research fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa). As a human geographer, her research is concerned with heritage-making processes, sustainable tourism and archaeological sites (rock art, stilt houses), particularly in mountain areas (South of France, French Antilles, Alps, South Africa), where she analyses the dynamic balance between heritage processes and tourism development.
Benjamin Smith
Benjamin Smith Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia; Rock Art Research Institute, GAES, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa;[email protected]
Benjamin Smith is the Professor of World Rock Art at the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, and Associate Dean, Research, in the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education at the University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia). His major research interests include theory and method in rock art studies, rock art dating, digital archiving in archaeology, rock art and identity, contextual approaches to the interpretation of meaning and motivation in rock art and the role of rock art in modern societies.
Christophe Gauchon
Christophe Gauchon Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, EDYTEM, 73370 Bourget-du-Lac, France; [email protected]
Christophe Gauchon is a professor of Human and Social Geography at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc, France / Edytem UMR 5204 CNRS Laboratory.
He studied cavern use and development in the French mountains and then extended his field of analysis to tourism developments, heritage-making processes and protected areas, with a particular interest of the use of toponyms in heritage logic.
Laura Mayer
Laura Mayer Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia; [email protected]
Laura Mayer is a Phd Student in archaeology at the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, University of Western Australia. Her research Authenticity in 3D: a study of rock art replicas in cultural and heritage institutions addresses the relationship between the theoretical research conducted on reconstructions and their practical installation in cultural and heritage organisations. Her principal focus is on the most effective mode of display for rock art reconstructions in cultural and heritage organisations. She considers how audiences interact with rock art reconstructions in ways that they cannot at original rock art sites.
Charlotte Malgat
Charlotte Malgat Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, EDYTEM, 73370 Bourget-du-Lac, France;[email protected]
Charlotte Malgat is doctor in human and social geography, associated researcher at the Edytem UMR 5204 CNRS Laboratory (University of Savoie Mont Blanc, France). Defended in 2016, her Phd Thesis aimed to analyze the impact of the replica of the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave and its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List on the tourism in the South-Ardèche region.