2024

The understanding of the notion of ‘the past’ has undergone a complex development in recent years within archaeology and related disciplines. It continues to be interpreted in different ways and in relation to different types of evidence. Indeed, understandings of the conceptualisation of time itself has received an increasing amount of attention, both in relation to methodological and theoretical considerations as well as in terms of public and historical imaginations. In this paper, we explore these aspects in relation to the transformation of archaeological evidence into heritage in the context of European Palaeolithic cave art sites. We focus on the processes of the perception, creation, and imagination of time in relation to 3D replicas of two famous painted cave sites: Lascaux and Chauvet. Through our analysis, we demonstrate that these replicas are reflections of a modern, essentialist, and linear understanding of history, which is linked to a fascination with the notion of originality and related ideas of purity, authority, and wholeness. Engaging with the temporality of the replica also allows an understanding of the unstable character of these notions as the replicas simultaneously exist in (at least) two temporalities and the viewer’s engagement might oscillate between the two. While being wholly located in the present, the replica equally reflects human masterful abilities in the present and the deep past. Our analysis consequently allows to appreciate how the replica participates in the unstable and socially constructed temporalities of authenticity and originality.