CAVE ART

Cave art: translation

European Paleolithicpainted and engravedrock artimagery, especially in the caves of France (such as Lascaux) and Spain (such as Altamira), has been interpreted as evidence of “artfor art’s sake,”hunting magic, totemism, structuralism—and shamanism. The latter idea has received revived attention since the late 1980s. Demorest Davenport and Michael Jochim (1988) argued the avian characteristics of the bird-topped “staff” and the simple human stick figure in the Lascaux “shaft scene” might be interpreted as an example of a shaman engaging with and perhaps transforming into a bird spirithelper. In the same year, two South African scholars (DavidLewis-WilliamsandThomas Dowson), working onSouthernAfricanBushman (San) rock art, proposed aneuropsychologicalmodelfor interpreting geometric forms in European cave art asentopticphenomena, as well as for interpreting iconic forms as evidence of shamanistic visions and experiences. Lewis-Williams and Dowson’s model has been controversial, but while some critics remain “shamanaphobic” (e.g., Bahn 1997, 1998; Solomon 2000; Kehoe 2000), the vast majority of specialists concur that at least a significant proportion of cave art imagery—and similarly that in some other rock art traditions—is likely to be derived from thealteredstates of consciousnessassociated with shamanisms.