Kent’s Cavern with Paul Bahn

Beautiful setting for Paul Bahn’s talk

Living in Devon, it's rare that you don’t have to travel to a big city to get involved with the archaeology community. However, the other week, I was scrolling through Instagram. I came across one of my favourite local attractions, Kent’s Cavern, which was hosting its 3rd Discovery Evening, featuring a talk with Paul Bahn.

I’m not sure I’ve ever booked anything so quickly in my life. If you haven’t come across Paul’s work, firstly get out from under your rock, and secondly go and Google him. This man wrote the book on Archaeology (quite literally, he was the co-author of my undergraduate textbook Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice). I cannot count the number of times I’ve referenced him in essays.

Of course, I told him this mid-book signing.

Anyway, back to the evening - his talk was fascinating, inspiring (and has already given me some dissertation ideas), and focused on his search for ice age cave art and his discoveries at Cresswell Caves. He spoke about how he and his team had spent the previous few days searching at Kent’s for any signs of petroglyphs/paintings. Unfortunately, Kent’s Cavern, despite Paul predicting that there is art, is so covered by calcite buildup that nothing has been found yet.

Thankyou to to the team at Kent’s Cavern and to Paul Bahn and Ellie Clifford

A tour around the cave ensued, which was more enjoyable than my previous one, spent trying to ensure that my 9- and 6-year-olds didn’t climb, break anything, hide, or get lost. (I do love an adult-only evening!)

I came away from the evening feeling inspired, full of ideas that I now need to research and a new signed book in hand.