'I had tears in my eyes': Archaeologist Jean Clottes on the joy of decoding prehistoric art
The Grotte Chauvet-Pont d’Arc in France has some of the oldest cave art in Europe
**This episode originally aired January 15, 2018.
It was December 29,1994. Jean Clottes should have been spending Christmas with his family. But the day before, a colleague had called him with news, and an urgent request. Would he drive 400 kilometres and rendezvous with a spelunker named Jean-Marie Chauvet?
As France's Inspector General for Archaeology, Clottes was the go-to expert for authenticating prehistoric art.
And so on a shivering day in the backcountry of the Ardèche, the spelunker made an unusual request to Clottes so he could get through a narrow passage that was chiseled through solid rock.
"Chauvet told me, no helmet" Clottes remembered. "You wouldn't be able to get through. And then he advised me to take off my sweater."
"So I said: 'What do I keep?' And he said: 'just your overalls on your bare skin because every centimetre counts. And he was right."
Eleven days earlier Chauvet and two companions, Eliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire, had been searching for new caves near Vallon Pont d'Arc. They noticed an updraft venting from some rocks. So they cleared away some gravel.
Then they took turns chiseling through solid rock, slowly widening a seam they hoped would open onto a cave.
'All cultures have ghost stories'
In La Découverte de la Grotte Chauvet-Pont D'Arc, the trio describe the process: wriggle into the passage, with arms stretched forward. Chip at the rock. Clutch the rubble as the others dragged you by your heels back to the surface. Then tunnel an exhausting seven metres before you reach an opening.
Brunel was the first to see two red marks painted on a wall. "They have been here!" she shouted. The marks were the least of what they found.
Days later, Clottes shed his sweaters and squeezed his six-foot frame through the passage. When he emerged six hours later, he called his boss, the Minister of Culture.
Clottes was moved to tears inside the cave. "It's a big discovery," he told the Minister.
"In my eyes, it's a discovery which is as big as Lascaux."
The Lascaux cave in the Dordogne has been called the Sistine Chapel of prehistoric art.
In this newly-discovered cave, there were over 400 painted animals. It was the first instance of prehistoric artists drawing lions, rhinoceros, and mammoths.
One famous panel depicts lions, their eyes fixed, stalking bison. These were not rough images, but masterful works of art. It was a watershed moment for Jean Clottes. The paintings went to the very heart of the question that had driven his curiosity for decades.
Why did prehistoric humans make art?
Radiocarbon dating later determined that the oldest paintings in the Chauvet cave were made 36,000 years ago, making them the oldest paintings ever found.
Their sophistication upended what people thought about the very beginnings of art. Experts had theorized that early art was crude and evolved over the following millennia. The art in Chauvet exploded that theory.
"We are humans and as humans we think. We wonder about the stars or we wonder also about ourselves and our past. All cultures have ghost stories — they've got stories about the world, how the world came to be ... the place of humans in the world," Clottes remarked.
"They must have had those stories and they're gone — the only thing we have is those images they left on the walls."
That moment in Chauvet when Clottes eyes filled with tears is one that he holds dear. He was moved by being a first witness to such extraordinary paintings.
"Suddenly, I thought: 'Oh my God. I'm a lucky man.'"
About this episode and the guest:
In this episode, IDEAS contributor Neil Sandell introduces us to Jean Clottes' insights into the enigmatic world of cave paintings — works which Clottes believes are more connected to spiritual practice than to artistic expression.
In a sense, cave art is the original "art installation." To grasp it, you need to experience it. And so Jean Clottes guides contributor Neil Sandell deep into the darkness of another cave, at Niaux, where Clottes began his research so many years before.
Jean Clottes is one of the world's leading authorities on prehistoric art. He has written and edited nearly two dozen books as well as 300 scientific articles.
Among the most influential and controversial was Shamans of Prehistory, a book he wrote with the South African archaeologist, David Lewis-Williams. They elaborated on a theory proposed in the 1950s, that cave art was somehow connected with shamanism.
In 1996, Clottes won an international competition to lead the research team for the Chauvet cave. He was also featured in the Werner Herzog documentary about Chauvet, Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
A version of this documentary called What They Left Behind earned Neil Sandell the Prix Marulić International Audio Festival award when it was featured on The Leakey Foundation's Origin Stories podcast.
Further reading:
- Shamans of Prehistory by Jean Clottes & David Lewis-Williams, Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
- What is Paleolithic Art? by Jean Clottes, University of Chicago Press, 2016.
- "First Impressions" by Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, June 23, 2008
Music featured in this episode:
- Difference by Kai Engel
- Denouement by Kai Engel.
- The Eternal Wheel by Parvus Decree.
- Gau by Parvus Decree.
- The Black Sun Spire by Parvus Decree.
- Between the Worlds by Parvus Decree.
- Other by Alex Mason.
- Still Missing by Scott Holmes.
Special thanks to the Leakey Foundation, Yannick Le Guillou, Julia Barton, and Meredith Johnson
**This episode was produced by Neil Sandell and Greg Kelly.