The Amassing Harmony

A series of lectures on
150,000 years

of human consciousness

Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

Lecture #7(a)

Chauvet & Hohle Fels

In the beginning was a
limestone cave,
Dark One,
and naked woman

Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

December 8, 2024

Were I still teaching, I would do the following. I would place this skull (Kodiak Ursus replica) and this figurine of a woman (archeologists call these Venus figures: a bullshit and absolutely misleading term) on a table at the front of the room. 

I would turn out the lights, save for a dim lantern next to the skull and figurine. I would have background audio of slowly, quietly dripping water. 
 
Thus would I replicate several fundamental features of Chauvet, Hohle Fels, and Geissenklösterle (adjacent to Hohle Fels)—European caves frequented by our ancestors 35,000 years ago.
 
I would then invite the students into the room. In darkness. No talking.
 
After maybe 10 minutes of silence I would say something like, “What are you going to do about this?” As in, “How are you going to process this?” For, process it you must if you hope to understand human consciousness. 
 
I would tell them that this scene existed in these caves for thousands of years: the skull, the naked torso of a woman, in a karst-formation cave. (It seems to have existed more or less in other Aurignacian and Gravettian caves, as well. Yes, from at least 35,000 BC to shortly before the end of the Pleistocene.) 
 

Replica of Kodiak Ursus.

In the manner of the Genesis creation story, I would tell them:

In the beginning was a limestone cave (carved by hydrostatic pressure), Ursus, and a naked woman (with exaggerated breasts and vulva at Hohle Fels). And from this combination emerged all the wild things shown on the walls at Chauvet and scattered as bones at Hohle Fels—emerging from the membrane of stone—David Bohm’s “undivided wholeness in flowing movement.” All catalyzed by the classic Keeper of the Game—Ursus—and Woman.a Not Man: Woman. There is no visible evidence of Man (male gender).b

I would challenge them to give me an adequate explanation for this from western (or even eastern) philosophy or any of the axial religions. I suspect they would be stymied.

I would underscore that all they need to grapple with at this point is a karst cave, a bear, and a naked woman. These seem to be the essential ingredients, the tinder and spark for summoning the wild things who appear on the walls of Chauvet (singly, in small groups, and in herds) and the creatures whose bones throughout Hohle Fels remain as testament to their arrival, somehow, by this uncanny, quantum-like process.

Herds? The visible creatures of Chauvet appear to be “pulling,” as it were, others through the membrane behind them. A stampede of emergence. Perhaps something like the water spilling out of the painting in the image to the right. 

Then I would show them this: The Great Theft.

References:

  1. See Calvin Martin, “Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade,” 1978.[]
  2. Note that the 20 cm carved and polished stone phallus from Hohle Fels can be associated with either a cave bear or human male. I see no way to differentiate between the two, nor is it necessary to do so. On the other hand, given the length, cave bear seems more likely than human male.[]
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