The ceiling's splendid paintings are mesmerizing, but they only represent a part of the furniture of the cave: furniture that was apparently rearranged by the occupants over the past 28,000 years and more. Those generations of paintings signal how the cave has been socially engaged for thousands of years.
Across the more open part of the cave is a natural grid of 36 stone pillars, pillars which are predominantly the remnants of the erosive effect on fissure lines within the bedrock. However, archaeological investigations have shown to researchers that some of the pillars collapsed and were removed, some of them were reshaped or even shifted, and some of the ceiling slabs were taken down and repainted by the people who used the cave.
Tool marks on the ceiling and pillars clearly illustrate that part of the purpose for the modifications was to facilitate the quarrying of rock from the cave. But researchers are convinced that the living space of the cave was purposely fitted-out, one of the entrances significantly widened and the cave redecorated more than once. The research team uses the French term aménagement to encapsulate the notion of the apparently purposeful modification of the cave's living space.
Please see the bibliography for sources about Nawarla Gabarnmang.
