Color at the Grande Grotte, Arcy-Sur-Cure (Yonne, France).

Since the recent discovery of prehistoric paintings, many resarch works wer e undertaken to understand the organisation of the Grande Grotte of Arcy-su r-Cure : description of the painted walls, archaeological survey, calcite r emoval for a better revelation of the animals... Color analysis has the aim to bring to light the technical aspects of the realisation of the painting s. 18 objets found in the archaeological soil and 46 samples taken from the painted pannels were examined thanks to the scanning electron microscope ( SEM). Black pigments are charcoal. Red pigments are based on iron oxides, t heir characters define the different [ paint Dots ] used by the prehistoric artists. These [ pots ] give objective links between the different figures and with the objects. Bone fragments discovered in several samples give ev idence to the use of a bone tool for the preparation of the painting matter . Complementary results: by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are pres ented to have a better insight of the origin and the possible heat-treatmen t of the iron oxides.