A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting Religion and Society Through Rock ArtJ. David Lewis-Williams is world renowned for his work on the rock art of Southern Africa. In this volume, Lewis-Williams describes the key steps in his evolving journey to understand these images painted on stone. He describes the development of technical methods of interpreting rock paintings of the 1970s, shows how a growing understanding of San mythology, cosmology, and ethnography helped decode the complex paintings, and traces the development of neuropsychological models for understanding the relationship between belief systems and rock art. The author then applies his theories to the famous rock paintings of prehistoric Western Europe in an attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of rock art. For students of rock art, archaeology, ethnography, comparative religion, and art history, Lewis-Williams' book will be a provocative read and an important reference. |
Contents
Historical Setting | 1 |
Man Must Measure | 15 |
Ethnography and Iconography | 51 |
Mystery Wrapped in Myth | 73 |
Through the Veil | 95 |
A Dream of Eland | 119 |
Seeing and Construing | 133 |
Building Bridges | 163 |
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African Archaeological Bulletin African rock art animals antelope argue artists associated Barkly East Battiss believed Biesele Bleek and Lloyd Breuil Bushman Clottes complex context culture D. F. Bleek depictions Diä!kwain Drakensberg eland engravings enter trance entoptic phenomena ethnographic explanation flywhisks geometric Giant's Castle hallucinations honey human figures hunting Kalahari Klüver Kung Lascaux Lewis-Williams 1972b Lewis-Williams 1981a Lewis-Williams and Dowson Mantis Mantis's means medicine Meerkats mental imagery metaphor motifs myths navicular navicular entoptic Orpen Pager panel parietal art Pech Merle percent probably Qing rain-animal rhebuck rituals rock art images rock art research rock face rock paintings rock shelters San rock art San shamans seems shaman-artists shamanistic Siegel and Jarvik social South African Archaeological southern African rock southern San spirit world stage suggest supernatural potency superpositioning symbols therianthropes tion trance dance Upper Paleolithic art Vinnicombe 1976 visions W. H. I. Bleek Western Western Cape Province