Interpreting Sapiens’ Consciousness through Paleolithic Cave Art

Interpreting Sapiens’ Consciousness through Paleolithic Cave Art PDF Author: Gary J. Maier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527519015
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This book is the first to identify an interpretive path through Paleolithic cave art that can provide plausible meaning to the animal figures in the Lascaux cave in France. The artwork was created during a period described as the Creative Explosion, spanning from 35,000 to 11,000 BC. The author has found that the artists, or shamans, have left clear evidence of aspects of their worldview and by using ethological evidence, such as a bison shedding its winter coat to identify spring as the season portrayed in a specific panel, he adds a level of certainty to his interpretations. In sum, this book argues that the cave art describes the journey of the soul from the spirit world to the natural world and back, and that it identifies a spectrum of consciousness involving the five traditional senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. Moreover, the book explores the hunting strategies employed early survival groups which are depicted in the cave art. The role of the shamans’ impact on the artwork is also addressed.

Interpreting Sapiens’ Consciousness through Paleolithic Cave Art

Interpreting Sapiens’ Consciousness through Paleolithic Cave Art PDF Author: Gary J. Maier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527519015
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is the first to identify an interpretive path through Paleolithic cave art that can provide plausible meaning to the animal figures in the Lascaux cave in France. The artwork was created during a period described as the Creative Explosion, spanning from 35,000 to 11,000 BC. The author has found that the artists, or shamans, have left clear evidence of aspects of their worldview and by using ethological evidence, such as a bison shedding its winter coat to identify spring as the season portrayed in a specific panel, he adds a level of certainty to his interpretations. In sum, this book argues that the cave art describes the journey of the soul from the spirit world to the natural world and back, and that it identifies a spectrum of consciousness involving the five traditional senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. Moreover, the book explores the hunting strategies employed early survival groups which are depicted in the cave art. The role of the shamans’ impact on the artwork is also addressed.

Interpreting Sapiens' Consciousness Through Paleolithic Cave Art

Interpreting Sapiens' Consciousness Through Paleolithic Cave Art PDF Author: Gary J. Maier
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781527519008
Category : Art, Prehistoric
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book is the first to identify an interpretive path through Paleolithic cave art that can provide plausible meaning to the animal figures in the Lascaux cave in France. The artwork was created during a period described as the Creative Explosion, spanning from 35,000 to 11,000 BC. The author has found that the artists, or shamans, have left clear evidence of aspects of their worldview and by using ethological evidence, such as a bison shedding its winter coat to identify spring as the season portrayed in a specific panel, he adds a level of certainty to his interpretations. In sum, this book argues that the cave art describes the journey of the soul from the spirit world to the natural world and back, and that it identifies a spectrum of consciousness involving the five traditional senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. Moreover, the book explores the hunting strategies employed early survival groups which are depicted in the cave art. The role of the shamans' impact on the artwork is also addressed.

Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art PDF Author: David Lewis-Williams
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500770441
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
The breathtakingly beautiful art created deep inside the caves of western Europe has the power to dazzle even the most jaded observers. Emerging from the narrow underground passages into the chambers of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira, visitors are confronted with symbols, patterns, and depictions of bison, woolly mammoths, ibexes, and other animals. Since its discovery, cave art has provoked great curiosity about why it appeared when and where it did, how it was made, and what it meant to the communities that created it. David Lewis-Williams proposes that the explanation for this lies in the evolution of the human mind. Cro-Magnons, unlike the Neanderthals, possessed a more advanced neurological makeup that enabled them to experience shamanistic trances and vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix," or paint, these images on cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged. Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven here with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aesthetic achievements.

Deep History

Deep History PDF Author: Andrew Shryock
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520270282
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This breakthrough book brings science into history to offer a dazzling new vision of humanity across time. Team-written by leading experts in a variety of fields, it maps events, cultures, and eras across millions of years to present a new scale for understanding the human body, energy and ecosystems, language, food, kinship, migration, and more.

The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft -- Pearson eText

The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft -- Pearson eText PDF Author: Rebecca L Stein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317350219
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This book emphasizes the major concepts of both anthropology and the anthropology of religion and examines religious expression from a cross-cultural perspective while incorporating key theoretical concepts. It is aimed at students encountering anthropology for the first time.

Shamanism [2 volumes]

Shamanism [2 volumes] PDF Author: Mariko Namba Walter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1576076466
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1088

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Book Description
A guide to worldwide shamanism and shamanistic practices, emphasizing historical and current cultural adaptations. This two-volume reference is the first international survey of shamanistic beliefs from prehistory to the present day. In nearly 200 detailed, readable entries, leading ethnographers, psychologists, archaeologists, historians, and scholars of religion and folk literature explain the general principles of shamanism as well as the details of widely varied practices. What is it like to be a shaman? Entries describe, region by region, the traits, such as sicknesses and dreams, that mark a person as a shaman, as well as the training undertaken by initiates. They detail the costumes, music, rituals, artifacts, and drugs that shamans use to achieve altered states of consciousness, communicate with spirits, travel in the spirit world, and retrieve souls. Unlike most Western books on shamanism, which focus narrowly on the individual's experience of healing and trance, Shamanism also examines the function of shamanism in society from social, political, and historical perspectives and identifies the ancient, continuous thread that connects shamanistic beliefs and rituals across cultures and millennia.

Dream Science

Dream Science PDF Author: J. F. Pagel
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0124047106
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Dreaming is the cognitive state uniquely experienced by humans and integral to our creativity, the survival characteristic that allows for the rapid change and innovation that defines our species and provides the basis for our art, philosophy, science, and humanity. Yet there is little empiric or scientific evidence supporting the generally accepted dream-based theories of neuroconsciousness. Dream Science examines the cognitive science of dreaming and offers an evidence-based view of the phenomenon. Today, such evidence-based breakthroughs in the field of dream science are altering our understanding of consciousness. Different forms of dreaming consciousness occur throughout sleep, and dreamlike states extend into wake. Each dream state is developed on a framework of memories, emotions, representational images, and electrophysiology, amenable to studies utilizing emerging and evolving technology. Dream Science discusses basic insights into the scientific study of dreaming, including the limits to traditional Freudian-based dream theory and the more modern evidence-based science. It also includes coverage of the processes of memory and parasomnias, the sleep-disturbance diagnoses related to dreaming. This comprehensive book is a scientific exploration of the mind-brain interface and a look into the future of dream science. - Provides a more evidence-based approach than any other work on the market - Single source of integrated information on all aspects of dream science makes this a critical time-saving reference for researchers and clinicians - Authored by one of the leaders in the field of dream research

The Cradle of Humanity

The Cradle of Humanity PDF Author: Georges Bataille
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Art of indigenous peoples.

An Ethology of Religion and Art

An Ethology of Religion and Art PDF Author: Bryan Rennie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000046796
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Drawing from sources including the ethology of art and the cognitive science of religion this book proposes an improved understanding of both art and religion as behaviors developed in the process of human evolution. Looking at both art and religion as closely related, but not identical, behaviors a more coherent definition of religion can be formed that avoids pitfalls such as the Eurocentric characterization of religion as belief or the dismissal of the category as nothing more than false belief or the product of scholarly invention. The book integrates highly relevant insights from the ethology and anthropology of art, particularly the identification of "the special" by Ellen Dissanayake and art as agency by Alfred Gell, with insights from, among others, Ann Taves, who similarly identified "specialness" as characteristic of religion. It integrates these insights into a useful and accurate understanding and explanation of the relationship of art and religion and of religion as a human behavior. This in turn is used to suggest how art can contribute to the development and maintenance of religions. The innovative combination of art, science, and religion in this book makes it a vital resource for scholars of Religion and the Arts, Aesthetics, Religious Studies, Religion and Science and Religious Anthropology.

Ritual in Human Evolution and Religion

Ritual in Human Evolution and Religion PDF Author: Matt J. Rossano
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000175952
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
This book explores the role of ritual in social life, human evolution, and religion. It explains the functions and purpose of varied rituals across the world by arguing they are mechanisms of ‘resource management’, providing a descriptive tool for understanding rituals and generating predictions about ritual survival. By showing how rituals have resulted from the need to cultivate social resources necessary to sustain cooperative groups, Rossano presents a unique examination of the function of rituals and how they cultivate, mobilize, and direct psychological resources. Rossano examines rituals from a diverse range of historical contexts, including the Greco-Romans, Soviet Russians, and those in ‘crisis cults’. The book shows how rituals address societal and community problems by cultivating three psychological resources – commitment to communal values, goodwill (both of humans and supernatural agents) and social support or social capital. Holding communities together in the face of threat, disaster, or apathy is one of ritual’s primary functions, and the author describes how our ancestors used ritual to become the highly social, inter-dependent primate that is Homo sapiens. Including examples from all over the world and providing detailed descriptions of both past and current ritual practices, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, sociology, religion, anthropology, and sociology.