Cave Art

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about the Stone Age people who created the extraordinary images found in caves around the world, from hand outlines to abstract symbols to the multicoloured paintings of prey animals at Chauvet and, as shown above, at Lascaux. In the 19th Century, it was assumed that only humans could have made these, as Neanderthals would have lacked the skills or imagination, but new tests suggest otherwise. How were the images created, were they meant to be for private viewing or public spaces, and what might their purposes have been? And, if Neanderthals were capable of creative work, in what ways were they different from humans? What might it have been like to experience the paintings, so far from natural light?

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Alistair Pike No other episodes
  Professor of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Southampton
• Chantal Conneller No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer in Early Pre-History at Newcastle University
• Paul Pettitt No other episodes
  Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Durham University

Reading list

• The Splendour of Lascaux: Rediscovering the Greatest Treasure of Prehistoric Art
  Norbert Aujoulat (Thames and Hudson, 2005) Google Books →
• Journey through the Ice Age
  Paul G. Bahn (W&N, 1997) Google Books →
• Cave Art: A Guide to the Decorated Ice Age Caves of Europe
  Paul G. Bahn (Frances Lincoln, 2012) Google Books →
• Images of the Ice Age
  Paul G. Bahn (Oxford University Press, 2016) Google Books →
• What is Palaeolithic Art?: Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity
  Jean Clottes (University of Chicago Press, 2016) Google Books →
• The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves
  Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams (Harry N. Abrams, 1998) Google Books →
• Cave Art
  Bruno David (Thames and Hudson, 2017) Google Books →
• The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art
  David Lewis-Williams (Thames and Hudson, 2004) Google Books →

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Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

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Programme ID: m000mqn7

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mqn7

Auto-category: 930.1 (Archaeology of prehistoric periods)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In 1940, a dog called Robot fell into a hole at Lascaux in the Dordogne.