Volunteers leave the Lombrives cave after spending 40 days in the cave in Ussat-les-Bains, southern of France, on Saturday. AFP
TARASCON ARIGE: A group of 15 French volunteers on Saturday left a cave where they had stayed for 40 days, in an experiment probing the limits of human adaptability to isolation.
Dazzled by the light and with pale faces but otherwise healthy, the group led by French-Swiss explorer Christian Clot emerged at around 10:30am from the Lombrives cave in Ariege, southwest France.
The underground isolation experiment saw the subjects, aged between 27 and 50, give up watches, phones and natural light, exchanging modern comforts for a cave system with a constant 12 Celsius (54 Fahrenheit) temperature and 95 percent humidity.
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image captionFor 40 days and 40 nights, the cave-dwelling volunteers swapped modern comforts for basic necessities
A group of French volunteers have emerged from a cave after a 40-day study exploring the limits of human adaptability to isolation.
The 15 participants lived in the Lombrives cave in south-west France with no phones, clocks or sunlight.
They slept in tents, made their own electricity, and had no contact with the outside world.
The project aimed to test how people respond to losing their sense of time and space.
The so-called Deep Time experiment came to an end on Saturday, allowing the eight men and seven women, aged 27 to 50, who took part to leave the cave.
French Isolation Study for 15 People Ends After 40 Days in Cave parisguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from parisguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A group of French volunteers have emerged from a cave after a 40-day study exploring the limits of human adaptability to isolation.
Volunteers celebrate after leaving the Lombrives cave where they have spent 40 days, in Ussat-les-Bains, southern of France
Photo: AFP
The 15 participants lived in the Lombrives cave in south-west France with no phones, clocks or sunlight.
They slept in tents, made their own electricity, and had no contact with the outside world.
The project aimed to test how people respond to losing their sense of time and space.
The so-called Deep Time experiment came to an end on Saturday, allowing the eight men and seven women, aged 27 to 50, who took part to leave the cave.
French volunteers who lived in a cave with no phones or sunlight for 40 days say it was great Apr 25, 2021, 08:28 PM
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Volunteers leave the Lombrives cave after spending 40 days in the cave in Ussat-les-Bains, southern of France, on April 24, 2021.
Fred Scheiber/AFP via Getty Images
French volunteers have emerged from a cave after spending 40 days with no clocks or phones.
They took part in the Deep Time project, which explored the limits of human isolation.
Two-thirds of the group say they wanted to stay in the cave for longer.
Fifteen volunteers have emerged from a cave in the southwest of France after spending 40 days without clocks, phones, or sunlight for a human isolation experiment.