Friday – The Great Pyramids at Giza, Egypt Inside Chauvet Cave, France: Human Art 25,000 Years Ago

6/12 & 6/19 @ 11:00 AM/CH

Instructor: Stephen “Dr. Steve” Phillips, Ph.D.

6/12 We will finish up the hyena cages lecture from May

6/19 Our capability to express ourselves symbolically through art is among the features that make our species unique in the animal kingdom. The search for the origins of human art plays an important role in anthropological research to this very day.

Modern human artistic expression is evident in the form of hundreds, if not thousands, of stunning images painted onto the walls of caves in France and elsewhere. Early modern human occupations(s) of these painted caves range in date from about 15,000 years ago to as much as 30,000 years ago and beyond, an astounding depth of time.

Over the course of four summers excavating a Neanderthal-era archaeological site elsewhere in southwest France, Dr. Steve had the opportunity to visit several of these remarkable caves personally.

This lecture takes us on a journey to one of these remarkable sites: Chauvet Cave in southeast France. The images you will see we can relate to; however, can we relate to why these images existed at such a distant time in our human cultural history?