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In Our Time

Cave Art

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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? With Alistair Pike Professor of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Southampton Chantal Conneller Senior Lecturer in Early Pre-History at Newcastle University And Paul Pettitt Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Durham University Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:04.7

Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.

0:07.2

There's a reading list to go with it on our website,

0:09.4

and you can get news about our programs if you follow us

0:12.0

on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.

0:14.7

I hope you enjoyed the programs.

0:16.7

Hello, in 1940, a dog called Robot fell into a hole

0:21.1

at Lasco in the door-doin.

0:23.2

His owners explored the hole deeper and discovered

0:25.8

thousands of cave paintings of bulls and horses and deer

0:29.2

that are now famous.

0:30.8

Around the world, there are many more caves like this

0:33.3

that stone age people tens of thousands of years ago

0:36.5

decorated with handprints or abstract symbols

0:39.0

or images of animals.

0:40.4

They're fascinating in themselves.

0:42.4

Perhaps even more so are the questions they raise

0:45.0

of how they were made and why and what

0:47.4

that tells us of their creators,

0:49.0

and what he meant to be a human in a world of nian datas

0:52.0

as well as homo sapiens.

0:53.8

With me in the home, Srescus Cave Art,

...

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