What Lies Beneath; Neanderthal Cave Art to Fatbergs

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2018

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The archaeologist Francis Pryor tells Shahidha Bari about a lifetime of building vistas of our history and prehistory through the evidence of pottery shards, holes in the mud and broken bones and palaeo-archaeologist Paul Pettitt who co-discovered Britain's first cave art explains why darkness informed a critical component in the development of the human brain and archaeologist Ruth Whitehouse reflects on the use of caves for ritual. They are joined by Sharon Robinson-Calver who has been tasked with the on-going conservation of a piece of London's fatberg and poet Sean Borodale whose latest collection arises from field studies in grave yards, caves and mines. Together they discuss why the past draws them back and how that past signposts itself.

Francis Pryor 'Paths to the Past' is out on March 1st 2018 Paul Pettitt, Professor of Archaeology, University of Durham and Member of the Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution Research (BEER) Centre Ruth Whitehouse, Emeritus Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology, University College London Sean Borodale 'Asylum' is out on March 1st 2018 Sharon Robinson-Calver, Head of Conservation and Collection Care at Museum of London: Fatberg! on show until July

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.0	Hello, I'm Shah Hadabari.
0:33.6	Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion program, which brings together leading artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate.
0:42.3	If you enjoy what you hear, do subscribe. Search for the Arts and Ideas podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
0:49.3	And while you're there, please rate and review us. It'll help other people find us too.
0:53.3	This is the BBC.
0:57.0	Picture yourself descending deep into the bowels of broadcasting house. Over there is a mountain
1:03.0	of quarter inch tape reels. Over here, some discarded episodes of Dad's Army. You might even spot
1:08.9	a couple of wumbles, wandering free among the
1:11.7	dreditis and the debris. In this programme, though, we want to dig deeper even than the
1:16.3	basement of the BBC to ask, what is it that lies beneath and what lures us there?
1:21.9	We'll be sinking into London sewers, falling into Fenland mud, inspecting ancient cave art in Europe, and winding
1:29.3	our way into the hollowed heart of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. Underground, there are things
1:35.6	we have found and things we dream of finding. Nothing has come here that is more than flicker,
1:47.9	that has not brought the bright, hurt language of its sun.
1:52.4	It took this stalactite longer to grow than any nation.
1:57.8	A hatch into the unlit, under rooms, under fields,
2:07.0	Like dry leaves in a whole bits of me sit, an odd interior taxidome, dead space or space so slowly living, it is not seed time. But in a sailing language that assails me like falling
2:15.3	water, a discipline of decline.
2:20.1	A small hovel inside the south, Eastwater Cavern, from Sean Borodale's new poetry collection, Asylum.
	...

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