39. Lascaux Caves – Dordogne region, France
Graffiti is nothing new to humans. There was a strong culture of urban art about 17,300 years ago in France, but back then they worked inside caves. We didn’t yet have skyscrapers and trains. The paintings on this cave are from a 1940 discovery by a wandering teenager. When the French first discovered the Lascaux Caves, they wanted to share them with the world. Mistake. The depictions on the walls suffered from exposure to the elements, forcing the French to close the caves in ’63. Now, you’d have to be a scientist to get in, and that would only be because you were going in to check the degradation.
