Among the ups and downs of life, Chauvet noted that while humans in the Paleolithic period painted and played small flutes, there is no evidence that the Cro Magnons who inhabited the earth for a time concurrently, did either. But of greatest interest to me was his speculations as to the thinking of the people who visited this cave some 32,000 years ago. Given that the venus figure found there morphed from human lower body to animal head and that an apparent alter with the skull of an animal place careful facing out upon it he was able to infer several likelihoods.

Chauvet’s inferences included what he referred to as the concepts of  permeability and permanence. By permeability I understood him to mean that the cave people viewed life as a continuum without clear demarcations among the concepts of man, animal, and nature. That said, it suggested a sense of early spirituality wherein it was natural to build an alter, albeit adorned by the skull of an animal, and thereafter to light small deferences of incense about it. This had been suggested by the evidence of small sites about the alter that appeared to be where incense might have been burned.

But the idea of permanence seemed to me, a speech language pathologist, of even greater significance as in human development it is a later developing concept. Once one has the concept of permanence one is able to speak of now, then, and the future. One can experience more sense of responsibility for things now, a sense of regret for things past, and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of tomorrow.

Further, it is because of our sense of permanence that we can learn from our mistakes, enjoy today, and plan for tomorrow. In a sense our own personal ability to evolve into wiser, more responsible, and better informed persons would not occur with our strong sense of permanence. As such we can imagine the cave dwellers of 32,000 years ago picking up a charred stick to draw on the cave wall what he or she saw that morning in order to help the group to plan for the afternoon’s hunt or the cave’s defense.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams ended however on a rather wrenching note. Twenty miles from its site is situated the largest nuclear power plant in France. Its warmed waters leach from and back into the river on which banks it sits. Not far from the plant, an enormous greenhouse sits, warmed and irrigated by the steam from the nuclear power plant. Into this environment alligators have been introduced and thrive there. Large and fertile they reproduce with ease, their offspring totally white mutants, just one more step in the evolutionary chain, this time however possibly prompted by not only the warmed atmosphere of the nuclear power plants steam, but also by its radioactive elements.