Biocorrosion and Rock Art: A Mutual Exclusion at the Origin of Archaeological Voids ; Biocorrosion et art pariétal : une exclusion mutuelle à l’origine de vides archéologiques ; Biocorrosion and Rock Art: A Mutual Exclusion at the Origin of Archaeological Voids: Methodology, First Results and New Research Perspectives ; Biocorrosion et art pariétal : une exclusion mutuelle à l’origine de vides archéologiques: Méthodologie, premiers résultats et nouvelles perspectives de recherche

International audience ; For millennia, men and animals have frequented the caves. They are therefore known for their archaeological remains, including rock art, but also for sheltering sometimes exceptionally large colonies of bats.The impact of bats on the underground environment has been identified for a few years with for example the development of bell holes on the ceiling and for the localized weathering caused by guano leachates on the walls. It now appears that this impact had been greatly underrated. Indeed, in recent years, research in karst science has integrated and developed this aspect, revealing the extended impact of biocorrosion, even in temperate latitudes. Thus, it is now accepted that the walls of caves that have been occupied at different times by large colonies of bats have been greatly modified. They are not only weathered, but also sometimes very largely reshaped, to the point that the volume of the gallery has considerably increased. New wall features, hitherto unknown, have been identified and a whole new catalog invites the re-reading of parietal morphologies.Obviously, in the initially decorated caves, rock art was the first affected by this retreat since it is located at the interface between the rock and the cave atmosphere. We can easily imagine that where biocorrosion was active, these traces of prehistoric artists may have disap-peared. The identification of the impact of biocorrosion therefore makes it possible to explain certain “voids”, without rock art, and above all to put into perspective the absence of rock art in some parts of the caves or even in some caves. In return, given the generalization of this phenomenon, we can then even ask why there are still decorated cavities? The most outstanding examples show that these are nearly always caves or parts of caves that were no longer accessible to bats. In these specific cases, a localized or generalized plugging of the caves blocked access to the bats after the passage of the artists, allowing the conservation of these ...