Deciphering Ancient Minds: The Mystery of San Bushmen Rock Art

Goes to the heart of contemporary arguments about the "primitive" and the "modern" minds, and draws new social, anthropological, and ethnographic conclusions about the nature of ancient societies.;Back in time -- Dance of life, dance of death -- 'These are sorcery's things' -- Discovering rain -- Capturing rain -- Truth hidden in error -- The imagistic web of myth -- Into the unknown -- 'Simple' people? Goes to the heart of contemporary arguments about the "primitive" and the "modern" minds, and draws new social, anthropological, and ethnographic conclusions about the nature of ancient societies. How did ancient peoples—those living before written records—think? Were their thinking patterns fundamentally different from ours today? Researchers over the years have certainly believed so. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the indigenous San people of southern Africa—among the last hunter-gatherer societies on Earth—became iconic representatives of all our distant ancestors and were viewed as either irrational fantasists or childlike, highly spiritual conservationists. Since the 1960s a new wave of research among the San and their world-famous rock art has overturned these misconceived ideas. Here, the great authority David Lewis-Williams and his colleague Sam Challis reveal how analysis of the rock paintings and engravings can be made to yield vital insights into San beliefs and ways of thought. This is possible because we possess comprehensive transcriptions, made in the nineteenth century, of interviews with San informants who were shown copies of the art and gave their interpretations of it. Using the analogy of the Rosetta Stone, the authors move back and forth between these San texts and the rock art, teasing out the subtle meanings behind both. The picture that emerges is very different from past analysis: this art is not a naive narrative of daily life but rather is imbued with power and religious depth. How did ancient peoples living before written records think? This intriguing book demonstrates that the ‘prehistoric’ mind was as complex and sophisticated as our own. Researchers used to believe their modes of thinking fundamentally different from ours. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the San people of southern Africa – among the last hunter-gatherers on Earth – were viewed either as irrational fantasists or childlike, spiritual conservationists. New research reveals how rock paintings and engravings can be made to yield insights into San beliefs and ways of thought. Using the analogy of the Rosetta Stone with its parallel texts, the authors move between the rock art and the San texts, teasing out the subtle meanings behind them both. The picture that emerges is not a naïve narrative of daily life but is imbued with power and religious depth. ‘A marvellous book: scholarly, but wonderfully readable too. Above all, it shows the richness of San culture, and the intertwined meanings of their mythology and their art’ – Alan Barnard, University of Edinburgh anthropology, archaeology, art history, psychology, history, bushman, san people, african history, religion, sociology, rock art, mythology, How did prehistoric peoples those living before written records think? Were their modes of thought fundamentally different from ours today? Researchers over the years have certainly believed so. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the indigenous San people of southern Africa among the last hunter-gatherer societies on Earth became iconic representatives of all our distant ancestors, and were viewed either as irrational fantasists or childlike, highly spiritual conservationists. Since the 1960s, a new wave of research among the San and their world-famous rock art has overturned these misconceived ideas. Here, the great authority David Lewis-Williams and his colleague William Challis reveal how analysis of the rock paintings and engravings can be made to yield vital insights into San beliefs and ways of thought. The picture that emerges is very different from past analysis: this art is not a naïve narrative of daily life but rather is imbued with power and religious depth. As this elegantly written, enlightening book so ably demonstrates, the prehistoric mind was in fact as complex and sophisticated as that of contemporary humans. This book is a controversial exploration of the origin of religion in the neurology of the human brain. The author first describes how science developed within the cocoon of religion and then shows how the natural functioning of the human brain creates experiences that can lead to belief in a supernatural realm, beings, and interventions. Once people have these experiences, they formulate beliefs about them, and thus creeds are born. Forty thousand years ago, people were leaving traces in the archaeological record of activities that we can label religious, and the author discusses in detail the evidence preserved in the Volp Caves in France. He also shows that mental imagery produced by the functioning of the human brain can be detected in widely separated religious communities such as Hildegard of Bingen's in medieval Europe or the San hunters of southern Africa At once polemical, insightful and thought-provoking, Conceiving God is essential reading for all those interested in the origins of religious thought, and the respective roles of science and religion in contemporary society. Building on the insights and discoveries of his two earlier books, The Mind in the Cave and Inside the Neolithic Mind, cognitive archaeologist David Lewis-Williams explores how science developed within the cocoon of religion and then shows how the natural functioning of the human brain creates experiences that can lead to belief in the supernatural realm.