WEBVTT - Selects: How Cave Dwellers Work 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:04.280 Are you a cave dweller? I have been caving, and 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.240 luckily I went caving before I did this podcast on 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:11.640 how cave dwellers work from February, because I gotta tell you, 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.080 if I had done this podcast first, I probably would 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.560 not have ventured into that cave. Very scary stuff down there. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:27.080 Everyone check it out and be aware. Welcome to stuff 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:35.640 you should know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:37.920 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.959 chills to Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, so it's 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:45.920 stuff you should know. Wow, it's the same energetic edition 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.680 a little bit. Yeah, yeah, it's cold. I'm energized by 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:54.840 the cold, energized and like just a little Yeah, so 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.120 you're not energized, that is what we're saying. I'm a 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.520 little innersized. I feel like I'm I'm fine. Right. Why 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.600 do you say that because he's sound like you're sleepwalking. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.520 Oh really? Yeah? Oh I thought I was just speaking fast. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.680 Oh no, no, I thought that's why you're being sarcastic. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.520 I'm sorry to everybody who's sitting through this right now. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:14.640 So I'm down in the dumps. You are right, Yeah, no, 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.160 I'm fine, okay, I'm just it's the cold. It's a 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.360 little dreary outside of Today's the day it finally started 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:24.600 to get to me. So you're ready for spring? Yes, Um, 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.640 Emily is ready for spring. I'm like, it's you know, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:28.959 it's January. She said, no, no, but it's Georgia, so 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:30.839 we could have spring in a few weeks. It's true. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.440 We kind of had it yesterday. Um. You mean. And 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.240 I have been making these little bird feeders, like with 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.360 cookie cutters and shapes and all that stuff. I've been 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:41.680 trying to get the physics of it down to hang 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.800 them so that the birds can like land on them there, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.120 so I incorporate twigs and these things. They can spend 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.600 a little time there. Yeah. And there's this, um, a 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.720 little s ob of a squirrel that has my porch 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.440 all figured out, and it keeps like getting these whole 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.520 bird feeder cakes. And I realized, like I'm spending a 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.280 lot of time like trying to thwart this squirrel figure 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.040 out the physics of bird feed and I'm like, yeah, 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.160 I'm ready for spreaking. Yeah, we have one of those 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.520 cake holders for birds, but it's really a squirrel feeder. Yeah, 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.079 and they eat it in like a day. Yeah. This 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.680 this squirrel can eat several cakes and it makes a mess. Yeah, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.320 all right, Cave Dwelling. I can't remember I've I've asked 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.000 you before, but I don't know if you've seen it, 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.799 um since I asked you, because you hadn't. A Cave 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.280 of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzel. No I watched, well, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.680 I watched like twenty minutes of it this morning just 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.920 to get the gist. You got the gist in twenty minutes. Well, 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:40.720 I can't wait to watch the whole thing though. It's 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.160 pretty much that. Yeah, but I don't want to watch it. Well, 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.240 yeah you should. It's neat. The whole thing's neat from 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.640 beginning to end. But I mean like it's a I 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:54.200 think maybe a two hour long documentary. Yeah, on a cave. Yeah. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.640 In the cave art, it's phenomenal. Yeah, I know the 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.280 one in uh well they're both in France, right, Yeah. 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.440 The one that gets the most press is the last 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.400 Last Go, which is great, but this one, to me, 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.560 the art is better. Well, Alasco gets lord pressed because 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.280 it was discovered in nineteen forty, this one that weren't 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:18.920 Herzog did a documentary only discovered in year old art. 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.600 It's amazing, Yeah, it is, and it's all spectacularly preserved. 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.320 One of the benefits of discovering lastco in nineteen forty 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.840 was that when Chauves Cave, the one that was discovered 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:33.560 in ninety four it's even older, was discovered, we'd already 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.600 figured out a lot of stuff along the way and 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.560 how to preserve it right, right, so we could go 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.040 in there and sort of TCB. Yeah, you need to 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.440 cut down on the carbon dioxide that people are breathing 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.880 out herzog in there. Yeah. Um, you need to cut 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:51.000 down on flashes flash photography, because apparently flashes really do degrade. 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:57.040 There's something called photo degradation of especially old pigments um, 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.000 and it's basically like releasing the sub light over the 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.080 course of a few milliseconds. Makes sense, that's one flash, 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.440 but if you add up all the tourists over the years, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.800 all of a sudden, you're basically bringing the sunlight artificially 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.600 into this cave and it's degrading the pigment. So there's 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.160 also sorts of stuff we learned from Lascow Cave that's 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.640 not being applied to Chouve Cave. Um, but yes, it 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.640 is older, it is more awesome. And the very evidence 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.880 of old cave paintings and all the artifacts and bones 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.280 that are found in caves would suggest that there, in 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.960 some distant past of prehistory was a race of hominids 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:37.719 that were cave dwelling hominids. They were a race of 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.880 cave dwellers. Yeah, that must be correct, right, ringo star. Yeah, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.720 I saw the movie Caveman or was that a documentary? 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.400 What's in a movie? Yeah, you're thinking of Quest for Fire. Yeah, 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.400 well those are all great movies. Plan at the Cave Bear, 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:54.520 But well I was setting you up and you you 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:59.760 didn't Well no, okay, thank is the answer. Um. They 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:05.200 now believe that, uh, people through different periods of ancient 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:10.000 history have dwelled in caves at times that probably didn't 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.599 like set up permanent residents in caves. Yeah. And the 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.960 big pivotal evidence of this is that the people who 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.760 would have supposedly lived in caves at that time were 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.200 all nomadic hunter gatherers. They wouldn't have been stationary for 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.080 in any kind of dwelling. Yeah, they gotta go out 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.479 and find the meat, right, So there was no such 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.320 thing as a species of hominid that you could say 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.640 our caveman. Those were the caveman. All the other ones 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.400 just lived. However, most of the people who are alive 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.440 in what we're talking about the Paleolithic era, which went 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.560 back from about two million years ago all the way 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.400 up to about ten thousand years ago. That's the Paleolithic 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:50.200 era um where they lived in all sorts of different 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:55.080 kinds of shelters, caves being one of them. Yeah. Uh. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.440 One reason to go into a cave is obviously it's 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.520 gonna and we've covered this is I think our third Yeah, 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:06.400 the cave Sweet Cave Sweet, Yeah, biospeleology, which is awesome sloking. Yeah, 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.440 and then this one cave cave. Followers who thought that 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.240 we would do the three part series on caves, ever, well, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.880 and this covers cave arts such that this will probably 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.159 be it. Don't you think? Is there anything else? I 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.240 can't cave anything? No, not really, Nick Cave. Maybe we 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.440 can podcast on him. Um. So some reasons to go 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.599 into a cave to begin with, obviously is to protect 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.600 yourself from the weather. I think it's probably the leading 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.000 it's raining, let's go inside that room. It's not raining 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.480 in the cave. Um to protect yourself from animals, because 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.120 if you go back and listen to our biospeleology, only 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.640 certain animals are in caves, very few and not a 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.920 lot of like you know, big nasty man eaters, although 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.800 back then they would have run in the cave bears 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.000 clan at the cave Bear. I don't know if sabretooth 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.680 tigers were cave dwellers, but I've seen a lot of 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.160 Flintstone episodes and from what I understand they do, they 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.960 did go into caves. Of course, you run into the 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.480 proteus salamander, which you would not want to run into. 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.240 Remember the three ft long eyelis salamander. Remember white nightmares 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.040 like once a week. Yeah, I don't think you'd do 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.400 anything to you, but man alive. Yeah, I wouldn't want 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:15.720 to see that thing, Like you wake up looking face 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.600 to face with that eyelis monster. Yeah. Yeah, but um, 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:23.720 protection from animals, protection from weather, but protection from other 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.880 people wasn't really a big reason. Because this is good 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:28.600 to know. I think I kind of got along and 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:33.200 help each other in general. Yeah, there's something called paleolithic warlessness. Yeah, 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.880 like the concept of war, organized war is apparently only 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:44.000 maybe twelve to sixteen thousand, eighteen thousand, maybe years old. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.400 I think probably once people started getting comfy as when 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.080 they started wanting to fight each other. Back then, they 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.760 were just trying to survive. Yeah, you know, well there's 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:55.120 a whole idea that agriculture and sedentary existence is what 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.600 led to warfare. What what that guy's got exactly? Yeah, yeah, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.720 it's basically and lead to surpluses. So people fared over surplus. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:04.640 You're starving over here, and they've got all this grain 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:06.280 over here, so you go kill all those people and 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.000 take the grain. We should do a history of war. 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.000 That'd be good. Well, that would be good. But there 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.760 were obviously there were scraps in the Paleolithic. I mean, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.000 it wasn't all like one in Roses. You tried getting 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:23.600 along with Ron Livingston now it's not his name. Oh 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.400 everybody gets along with Ron Livingston. He's from office space, right, yeah, 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:32.720 you know the other guy. Yeah, Um, that's a pretty 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.920 good mess up. There were scraps every now and then, 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.439 like obviously over you know, territory or food or fire. 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.720 But it wasn't like, hey, let's go to war with 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.200 this tribe. We don't like them, or we want what 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.439 they've got, because I mean the consensus among anthropologists apparently 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.680 is that war is relatively recent. It's not that ancient. 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:53.720 It's certainly not as ancient as a lot of the 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:59.679 cave art we run into. Yeah years, so, um, you've 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:05.160 got shelter from the elements, protection from animals, um, nice 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.240 steady temperature as we that's a big one. Yeah, because 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.720 the cave typically is about in the fifties fifties degrees 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:17.079 fahrenheight um round. Yeah. So if you are in a 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.520 cave and you're living there and it's summertime, you are 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.160 sitting pretty If it's winter time, depending on where you are, 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.000 so you're in northern Europe, you're still sitting pretty. Sure. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:27.400 All you have to do is build a little bit 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.280 of a fire and I hope you don't smoke yourself out, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.920 and you are, you're you're in some climate controlled luxury, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.760 especially for the Stone Age. You know, Uh. One reason 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.840 that everyone didn't live in caves, and this is something 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.920 I learned when I went on my caving experience, which 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.240 is detailed in the Spelunking episode, is that even though 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.640 there's tons of caves, not a ton of caves are 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.280 like great to live in. Like a lot of them 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.280 you might walk right past because it's just a hole 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.800 in the ground. You have no idea there's an underground cavern. 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.040 A lot of them are inaccessible. Um, a lot of 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.520 them have our active so that means they have water, 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:10.320 which isn't super hospitable inactive cave. Yeah, it'll flood. Yeah, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:12.520 you don't want to be in there when it floods. Yeah, 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:14.800 they're just not like generally, they're not like these huge 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.839 cavernous like, oh, it's a big underground home. Well. Plus 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.800 also there's a lot of gravel slopes which if you 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.640 stand on them you can fall and die. You learn 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.920 that pretty quick. Yeah, there's a cave dweller, lots of 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.800 different exits and entrances and shafts and things like that. 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.680 They can be misleading and confuse you and dark get 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.680 you lost to your death. Yeah, apparently just a couple 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.520 of dozen feet. I don't remember. There's the light zone, 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.760 the twilight zone in the dark zone, and I don't 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.560 remember where the twilight zone ends in the dark zone begins. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.520 But once that dark zone begins, there's no light, like 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:48.400 no light and like you said, you can't just start 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.000 a bunch of fires because you can die from smoking 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.040 yourself out. Yeah, you can hit your head on stealag tights. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.360 That's true. So it's not the most common thing to 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.720 find like a great cave for ten or twealth people 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.120 to live in, But when they found them and they 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.160 needed them, they would dwell in them, right and um. Again, 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.440 that's one reason, for several reasons why people didn't just 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.360 live in caves all the time. But another reason is 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.000 because they knew of other ways to live. They could 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.280 um stretch animal hides over of structures, they built um 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.320 earth and dwellings where they would build like a lean 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.920 to or something and then pack earth over it, which 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.440 is another way to control the climate or temperature in 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.800 that little dwelling. And again, they were nomadic. They were 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.320 following herds of bison and mammoths and um. You know, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.880 it's a big, beautiful world too. Let's not forget Yeah, like, 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:40.240 why would you want to go live in a cave 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.560 your entire life when you've got the run of the 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.000 place of planet Earth and all it has to offer. 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.560 You know, if there was a hominid uh that could 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:55.680 be considered cave dwellers though it would probably be the Neanderthals. 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.719 As we understand right now, it wasn't too terribly long 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.959 ago that we discover are the new species of UM 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.600 human ancestor well, at least they were contemporary with modern humans. 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.920 The dennis Ovans. Oh who is that? Um? They they 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:19.760 were their type of hominid that lived in the thirty 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.199 fifty thousand years ago at the latest, I think maybe. 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:28.760 And um there's a cave in Croatia I believe where 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.480 they discovered a moler and they thought, well, no, they 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.720 discovered a finger bone and they thought it was Neanderthal 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.920 ar human and they ran the DNA tests and they're like, uh, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.000 this is neither what is this? So they named it 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.720 it's a Dennisova cave or dennis Cave, one of the two. 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:50.480 And they named this new species of hominid a the 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.160 dennis Ovans. And then they looked at the human genome 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.240 and they're like, oh, well, you apparently in our bred 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.440 with them, because we have a little bit of dennis 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.760 Ovan and all of us most of us. Yeah, people 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:06.720 who UM stayed in Africa and didn't disperse like Neanderthals 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:11.239 or other modern humans too, apparently didn't have the opportunity 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.040 to mix with Dennis Ovans or Neanderthals. So typically people 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.680 of European descent Native American descent, they will have Um 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.400 Neanderthal and Denisovan in them. But there's this cave in 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.680 Croatia has evidence that these Neanderthals, humans and Dennis Ovan's 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.360 possibly shared these caves at the same time. Isn't that crazy? 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.280 They Yeah, they didn't necessarily sit around a campfire with 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.559 one another, but they they may have been using the 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.200 cave within you know, the same year or something like that, 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.400 depending on the season. I pictured them making s'mores and say, 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.439 how do you get your back so straight? But I mean, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.080 think about it. If they were breeding, you know, then 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.400 maybe it wasn't those caves. Jerry either laughed at that 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:58.880 or she's choking on something food or both. Perhaps. Uh So, Yeah, 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:03.720 the Neanderthal was um all over Europe and during a 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.920 glacial period, so obviously they've got harsh climates, so they 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.800 might want to poke into a cave every now and 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.520 then and warm up. Um. And there are a couple 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.160 of strategies that archaeologists believe we're used back then. The 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:22.120 circulating mobility and radiating mobility and circulating was um. And 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.000 I kind of like this idea is had several temporary 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.840 camps kind of scattered all over a region, and it's 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.320 kind of like just having different homes and you would 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:31.800 just go from place to place and live in your 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.880 little home and hunt and gather. Uh. Or it's the 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.840 same thing the ultra wealthy dude today exactly. Or radiating 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.040 mobility was when you had one main camp and you 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.800 would just go out as far as you could to 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:46.760 hunt and gather from that camp. Right, so you had 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.920 other shelters along the way. I don't know. I thought 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.840 the radiating mobility was just the one camp and you 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.400 came and went to that camp every day and that 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.240 was the difference. Is that right, It's possible. I think 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.880 that's right. Um. And apparently some of these camps were 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.440 in fact caves at times, right, So they were using 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:12.360 caves for sure. They were um doing something else too. Uh. 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.600 They were creating art in these caves, boy were they? 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:46.040 Which has people UM baffled. Alright, cave art and if 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.520 you have in your mind a cave art is like 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.520 super primitive, like you know, is that a buffalo or 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.240 is that a giraffe? You should go just google the 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.800 cave art in those two caves especially. Oh yeah, Calvette 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.720 calve chave. Yeah. One of the things that Herzog talks 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.880 about that they figured out, if I remember correctly, is 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:13.360 that the torchlight, the flickering torchlight, produces movement of these animals. 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.720 And um, they think they're they're wondering whether that was 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.080 like intentional or not, and they think it probably was 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:23.800 intentional before they make a little pounced interestingly. But it's 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:29.720 like legit art and legit talented painters. Yeah, when you 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.760 look at the stuff, it's pretty amazing. They hadn't discovered 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:40.160 um perspective yet, so it's all flat, two dimensional. But um, 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.400 first of all, they're creating these things in utter dark 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:48.160 by torchlight. Yeah, using earthen pigments like ochre for yellows 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:52.680 and oranges, Um, charcoal, charcoal for black was the red one. 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.880 I think for red they used iron oxide and they 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:03.240 used charcoal and manganese for they're using very very primitive 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:08.480 brushes in the dictionary sense of the word, yeah, or 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:13.360 there early airbrush artists essentially, because they're blowing this pigment 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:18.400 through a h a tube, a tube or just out 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.520 of their mouth right onto the walls. Yeah. Uh, and 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.760 then they're also using their hands and their fingers. But 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.160 you're right, man, there are some especially when you take 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.960 all of this into consideration. Yeah, it makes some of 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.000 the art that was made just staggering. Yeah. Apparently they 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.720 would use to some of the uh texture of the 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.480 cave itself, like if there was a an indentation or 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.520 not an indentation, but what's hopps has been indentation. Yeah, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:45.879 there was a bump that looked like a rhino horn. 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.640 They would incorporate that as the rhino horn, and all 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.240 of a sudden you had I mean, it's not quite 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.120 three D, but it's definitely more than flat. Yeah. Right, 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.920 you know they're like, it's not perspective, but it's gonna 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.600 have to do. Uh. They now have evidence in some 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.520 of these thirty thousand year old caves of scaffolding. I 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.760 hadn't seen that. Yeah, it's pretty cool, and um principles 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:16.400 of stenciling, early principles of stenciling. And apparently when uh 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:22.600 Picasso visited lescal he said to his guide, they've invented everything, 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.840 and he was just like blown away. Yeah, basically like 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.960 I'm just copying these early hominids. It's pretty amazing. It's 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.920 about right too. Yeah, and actually I don't know Picasso's 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.600 all right, but some of these caves they haven't beat 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.119 They didn't look funny, they didn't have one eye, and 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.800 they didn't wear braiths. Um So, most of the subjects 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.240 of cave paintings that have been discovered so far, and 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.000 there could be tons and tons of undiscovered caves, like 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.400 the one at Chauves wasn't discovered until because at some 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.840 point in the past a rock fall happened and closed 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.520 the cave off to view and was just happened to 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.760 be discovered by some hikers. Man, can you imagine being 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.400 the person that discovered that. It would have been pretty cool. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:14.280 Um So, most of the cave art that has been 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:20.120 discovered so far, it depicts herd animals. Yeah, animals, by 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:25.160 and large, there herd animals. They're bison, their buffalo, their um, mammoths, 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:30.280 things like that. Um. There's very few images of vegetation, 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.400 very few images of humans. The images of humans there 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.600 are tend to be things like fertility idols, like female 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.000 fertility idols, And there's a theory out there that those 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:46.000 were painted by adolescent boys. Yeah, as like basically early 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:50.760 you know, club magazine or something. And uh, that may 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.600 or may not be correct, especially when they found that 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.240 in France and Spain a lot and possibly the majority 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.680 of cave art was done by females. They recently discovered 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.920 you know, the hand ones handprints, they figured out recently 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.440 that most of those are female hands because of the 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:14.600 they they give away of the sixth finger, that only females. That. Um, 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.560 there's an article that I can recommend that actually is 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:22.640 what inspired Berner Hertzog to make his documentary called First Impressions. Uh. 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.320 It was in the New Yorker in two thousand eight 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:29.080 by Judith Thurman and it's super awesome. And uh, she 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.560 basically says there's a couple of camps when it comes 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.920 to cave art experts. Ah, those who can't resist advancing 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.960 a theory about the art, and then those who say 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.040 there never will be enough evidence to support one, so 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.640 you're all just sort of making up these theories. Yeah, 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.399 I think that's healthy. That second camp is much healthier 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.120 because it is all theories. But I like the theories though, Yeah, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:51.960 And I don't think we should just be like we'll 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.800 never understand that, so let's not even try. Yeah, I 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:56.960 think we should just remember that when we are trying 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.640 to understand them, they're all just guesses, and not even 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.000 really educated guesses at that. Yeah. I think my theory 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.600 of why there are animals mostly is because it was 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:12.720 super important to their survival. And maybe it was you know, uh, 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.879 some communication to leave for another person later or to 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.520 each other. Maybe. Yeah, it could be, Um, there's lots 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.080 of buffalo in this area, so get to hunting, or 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.480 don't hunt these guys, because I just killed a bunch 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.399 of them by forcing them off a cliff. It was awesome, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.720 by the way, to see, but there's not that many 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.320 left and we need them to keep reading. Or I'm 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:36.879 an eight year old the interthal in naked lady. Yeah, 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.760 here's a naked buffalo for your pleasure. Uh. There's also 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.800 lots of theories that these things were um supernatural somehow, 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.960 like they were trying to invoke the animal spirit for 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.560 a successful hunt or gain some sort of power by 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.320 creating an image of the animal. Um. And it could 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.800 have also just been like this is what I see 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.679 in my everyday life, and I have this desire to 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.280 create art. So that's that's the subject I'm gonna make 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:08.359 is this animal that I am thinking about a lot 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:10.800 because I have to hunt it for sustenance. Yeah, that 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:15.280 makes a conversion between this innate desire and the everyday life. 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:20.439 And that's bison on cave walls. Well, some of them 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.400 are pretty detailed in uh, some are life size. It's 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.040 like they really took a lot of time. It wasn't 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.360 something they just dashed off in a matter of hours. 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:31.960 And they're using these torches too, are not like it's 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.960 not like a modern electric torch known as a flashlight also, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.000 but um, they're like stone torches with like a little 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:42.440 divid in the top and some animal fat put in 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.040 there and then they light the animal fat, which I'm 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.160 sure in and of itself is quite a task. Um. 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.400 But so yeah, there was there was a lot of 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.639 effort put into this, a lot of detail. Gathering the 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.400 pigments I'm sure wasn't an easy feat, especially if you're 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:01.960 doing like a life side bison. How long did it 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:04.600 take to gather all that? Ochre sure it's not a 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:09.359 quick thing. And it's not just paintings. They found a 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.879 jewelry and other like engrave, bone and ivory and they 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:15.879 think they probably engraved wood too, but that obviously wouldn't 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:20.320 survive that long. But um, they suggest early religious belief 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:21.840 and that they think they might have buried people with 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:26.640 some of these things. Yeah, so it's like it's amazing stuff. 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:30.439 And unfortunately when there's no written history, there's a lot 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.840 of speculation. But it just I don't know, it's fascinating 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:36.359 to me. Well, yeah, you know, and their their history 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:38.840