In Our Time

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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In Our Time: Cave Art

24/09/2020

Cave Art

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Cave Art

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how and why Stone Age people decorated caves with images.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the cave peoples, human or Neanderthal, who made hand outlines, abstract symbols and multicoloured images of prey animals in the Stone Age.

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

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