Episode 125: Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) is a surreal documentary by Werner Hertzog offering viewers an unprecedented glimpse of Europe’s oldest Palaeolithic art inside France’s Chauvet Cave. As we step into the cave, we cross a threshold between present and past, waking and dreaming, fact and truth... sanity and insanity... A place where juggling archaeologists dream of lions, perfumers find caves by smell, and nuclear crocodiles draw closer every year.

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In this episode:

Watch Cave of Forgotten Dreams: https://watchdocumentaries.com/cave-of-forgotten-dreams/

Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09968-y

Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd4648

The timing and spatiotemporal patterning of Neanderthal disappearance: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13621

Neanderthal hashtag: https://theconversation.com/is-that-rock-hashtag-really-the-first-evidence-of-neanderthal-art-31238

Mask of La Roche Cotard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask_of_la_Roche-Cotard

Majkić et al. (2017) Sequential Incisions on a Cave Bear Bone from the Middle Paleolithic of Pešturina Cave, Serbia: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-017-9331-5

Life Drawing and the Chauvet Lions: https://doi.org/10.4000/palethnologie.2677

The Crocodile Farm: https://www.lafermeauxcrocodiles.com/

Viminacium Archaeological Park: http://viminacium.org.rs/en/

Our review of The Lost City (2022): https://screensofthestoneage.com/podcast/episode-64-the-lost-city-2022/

Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan Series: https://www.goodreads.com/series/43556-temperance-brennan

Hertzog explains “ecstatic truth” vs. “accountant’s truth”: https://www.indiewire.com/news/general/werner-herzog-fesses-up-to-the-fake-mutated-albino-crocodiles-in-cave-of-forgotten-dreams-118193/

Azéma and Rivère (2012) Animation in Paleolithic Art: https://doi.org/10.4000/palethnologie.2094

Neanderthal perfume: https://neandertal.eu/