Paul G. Bahn is a British archaeologist, translator, writer and broadcaster who has published extensively on a range of archaeological topics, with particular attention to prehistoric art

Prehistoric art

In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or it makes significant contact with another...

. He is a contributing editor to Archaeology

Archaeology (magazine)

Archaeology is a bimonthly mainstream magazine about archaeology, published by the Archaeological Institute of America. Its focus is both for archaeologists and non-specialists alike. The magazine was launched in 1948, and is published six times a year....

magazine published by the Archaeological Institute of America

Archaeological Institute of America

The Archaeological Institute of America is a North American nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion of public interest in archaeology, and the preservation of archaeological sites. It has offices on the campus of Boston University and in New York City.The institute was founded in 1879,...

 (AIA), and has lectured on many archaeological study tours sponsored by the AIA and others across Europe, Africa, North America and Polynesia

Polynesia

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

. Bahn has also been an active consultant expert to a number of archaeological documentaries

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, including the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 production "The Making of Mankind" and the trilogy of programmes "Human Origins" for the Nova

NOVA (TV series)

Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...

 series produced by WGBH-TV

WGBH-TV

WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...

, Boston.

Born and raised in Kingston-upon-Hull, Bahn studied archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

, completing his Ph.D thesis on the prehistory of the French Pyrenees

Pyrenees

The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

 in 1979. After receiving his doctorate Bahn held several post-doctoral fellowships, at Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 and London, as well as a Getty Foundation

Getty Foundation

The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts". In the past, it funded the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders", which is now at Claremont Graduate University. Its...

 postdoctoral fellowship in the History of Art and the Humanities. He went freelance in the mid-80s, and since then has devoted himself to writing, editing and translating books on archaeology, plus occasional journalism. His main research interest is prehistoric art, especially rock art of the world, and most notably Palaeolithic art, as well as the archaeology of Easter Island

Easter Island

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...

. He led the team which discovered the first Ice Age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

cave art in Britain in 2003 and 2004.

Published works

• Pyrenean Prehistory (1984)
• Ancient Places (with Glyn Daniel, 1986)
• Images of the Ice Age (1988, with Jean Vertut)
• The Bluffer's Guide to Archaeology (1989, 2nd ed. 1999, 3rd ed. 2004)
• Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice (1991, with Colin Renfrew—2nd ed. 1996, 3rd ed. 2000, 4th ed. 2004, 5th ed. 2008)
• Easter Island, Earth Island (with John Flenley, 1992)
• Mammoths (with Adrian Lister, 1995; 2nd ed. 2000)
• Archaeology: a very short introduction (1997)
• Journey Through the Ice Age (with Jean Vertut, 1997)
• The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art (1998)
• Disgraceful Archaeology (with Bill Tidy, 1999)
• The Enigmas of Easter Island (with John Flenley, 2003)