The First Leap to Consciousness with Paul Bahn & Elle Clifford
In this episode of See See by Ceci, we journey hundreds of thousands of years into the past, to the flickering firelight and painted depths of Ice Age caves.
What did it mean to live embedded in the landscape, wearing it “like a big cape”? How did the mastery of fire reshape not only our bodies but our minds? And what can we learn from the haunting images left deep within caves—some meant to be seen, others engraved in darkness, never intended for any eye but the spirit world?
From the earliest trace of aesthetic awareness, a pebble that looked like a face, carried home, to dots, stencils, animals, geometric forms and so much more, we explore how symbolic culture emerged not from necessity but from play, imagination, and the suspension of ordinary reality. We consider how caves themselves became spaces of meditation and transformation, how music and birdsong may have shaped early consciousness, and what these first leaps into abstraction reveal about the origins of art, religion, and the human mind itself.
In conversation with Paul Bahn one of the world’s leading authorities on prehistoric rock art, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and author of over one hundred publications including the award-winning Images of the Ice Age, and Elle Clifford, psychologist and researcher specializing in Ice Age life whose work on cave art and mythological worlds illuminates the social and psychological dimensions of our earliest ancestors. Co-hosted by acclaimed Italian landscape photographer Domingo Milella, this episode invites us to stand face to face with those who came before, and to see ourselves reflected in the first marks they left behind.
Everyday Life:
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803272580
Living in the Ice Age:
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803276670
Making Art in the Ice Age:
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781805830887
Cave Art: A Guide to the Ice Age Decorated Caves of Europe:
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803277639
Images of the Ice Age:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/images-of-the-ice-age-9780199686001?cc=gb&lang=en&
Andante Travels:
https://www.andantetravels.co.uk/guides/dr-paul-bahn
Martin Randall Travel:
https://www.martinrandall.com/about/expert-speakers/dr-paul-bahn
Archaeological Institute of America tours:
https://www.archaeological.org/tour_leader/paul-g-bahn/
In this episode you heard as background music for Vijay Iyer’s excerpt: Prelude: Orion from Compassion(Vijay Iyer Trio)- Vijay Iyer, piano; Linda May Han Oh, double bass, Tyshawn Sorey, drums.
