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(circa 90,000 to 10,000 years ago)
Overview of Four Eras of Evolution
of Art, Religion, Mind and Psyche
,,,,,Oldowan
,,,,,Early Paleolithic
,,,,,Middle Paleolithic
.....Upper Paleolithic
Palaeoart Representation Mode: Drawing on the palaeoart heritage of our Early and Middle Paleolithic ancestors, Homo sapiens sapiens sites show earliest evidence of representational rock painting, which appears on all continents around 50,000 years ago. (This date however may only be an accident of taphonomy, actual rock painting is probably much older.) Publications on 'rock art' paintings and engravings and portable art, especially of UP Europe, are voluminous and well-known. An excellent overview is given in Paul Bahn and Jean Vertut [(1997). Journey through the ice age. Berkeley, CA: University of California].
The latest approach to interpretation of UP art is to view it as depicting 'geometric percepts or phosphenes' and associated cultural interpretations of trance (altered states of consciousness). [See. e.g., J. Clottes and Lewis-Williams, D. (1996). The shamans of prehistory: Trance and magic in the painted caves. NY: Abrams]. Of course, as noted by the authors and others, the art is more complex and multileveled than this.
Drawing upon my proposed decipherment of UP geometric signs, I have proposed that the so-called 'Venus' figurines from Eurasian sites, as well as many other anthropomorphic figures, represent and encode a female and male spiritual transformation processes. These appear to parallel some of the shamanic trance postures identified by the anthropologist Felicitas Goodman.
The 'shamanic' interpretation of UP art does not preclude the view, following A. Leroi-Gourhan and others, that the animals depicted in this art are symbols in a complex and sophisticated code. As in the case of the geometric signs, they are iconographic, belong to a system of juxtapositions and pairings, and have multilevels of signification.
I have proposed that the animals form pairs of pairs (quaternions, fourfold, or sixfold) that are complementary and thus have the capacity to constitute a multileveled symbolic system or encyclopedia of cultural knowledge. A fourfold (or eightfold) pattern is perhaps first detectable in the European Aurignacian, e.g., Chauvet Cave, pairing bison vs. horse; mammoth vs. rhino; ibex vs. deer; and lion vs. bear. The European Magdalenian comprises a more crystallized system, with a primary pairing of bison (aurochs) vs. horse; and a secondary pairing of deer vs. ibex. This system has the capacity to serve as a mnemonic device that encodes key zoological, social, economic, and psychological information ('memes'), including the basic moral themes described by Chris Knight [(1991). Blood relations: Menstruation and the origins of culture. New Haven, CT: Yale].
C O N T E N T S
Overview of Four Eras of Evolution
of Art, Religion, Mind and Psyche
,,,,,Oldowan
,,,,,Early Paleolithic
,,,,,Middle Paleolithic
.....Upper Paleolithic
Such quaternity patterns also appear to have structured African rock art of the Early Hunter style (primary pairing, elephant (tusk down) vs. giraffe (vertical up); secondary pairing, perhaps, wild cattle, eland, or wildebeest vs. zebra, wild ass; plus antelopini, rhino, pig or warthog, hippo and predatory carnivores). The European Aurignacian quaternion might then be viewed as a transitional between the African and Magdalenian pairings. If so, then the Aurignacian mammoth substitutes for the elephant and possibly the rhino for the giraffe. A similar transitional symbol system occurs at Rouffignac, Les Combarelles, and associated sites of what Leroi-Gourhan referred to as 'the Rouffignac complex'.
Complex religious ritual sites appear in the record. For example at Gönnersdorf, Germany there is a processional walkway between two huts, with female 'profile' ('claviform') figurines in one of them. This is highly suggestive of a female initiation site, and my decipherment of UP(E) geometric signs confirms this. A similar pattern occurs at El Juyo, Spain, in this case, two interconnected pits, with a deer ankle bone in the center of multi-colored rosettes made of sand, along with a stone sculpted as a half human/half feline. El Juyo has a direct analogy to the Navaho hunting rite for the creation of the first deer.
Intentional defleshing and possibly cannibalism continue, e.g., Klasies River. Burials continue from the MP but now with much more elaborate grave goods, e.g., Qafzeh 11; Dediriyeh; Taramsa, Egypt (with MSA tools,OSL 50-80K).
Continuing EP and MP traditions, production of beads and other ornaments is widespread and shows high skill, e.g.shell beads, Turkey, 43,000 BP; ostrich eggshell beads and eggshell fragments in geometric shapes, Kenya, 40,000 BP.
Signs Representation Mode: Continuing use of EP signs to which are added a host of new signs, and now the signs appear to be paired and integrated into stereotyped and canonical sign systems. In UP Europe the state of research on so-called 'geometric signs' and associated animal figures is summed up by Paul Bahn [(1997). Journey through the ice age.]. He observes that archaeological evidence indicates the art is iconographic--“there seems to be a definite system or ‘grammar’ at work, but we do not know what it is . . . the system is not binary and is certainly far more complex” (p. 195); and “Paleolithic art . . . certainly comprises a ‘vocabulary’ of symbols, some of which must have had considerable information value, and certain combinations of which may have had special significance” (p. 209). In other words, Leroi-Gourhan's basic insight that some signs function in juxtapositions and pairings still stands. As noted by Sauvet, Sauvet and Wlodarczyk (1977): structural operators are at work in some of the markings; it is the presence and absence of particular combinations which is revealing: in parietal signs, for example, very few combinations occur out of the range of possible signs, and only signs found in binary combinations also occur in triads of signs.
Drawing on the work of A. Marshack, M. Gimbutas and structuralist semiotics of A.-J. Greimas, I have proposed a decoding of UP European geometric signs as a gesture-sign protolanguage (UP-E) used to understand and represent the life-force in all living things, including both the processes of nature and twelve male and twelve female spiritual transformation processes and their associated oral tradition myths. Signs represent processes of 'centering,' 'contacting spirit energies,' 'unfolding growth,' and 'flow.' This protolanguage crystallized during the late Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian period, c. 17,000-12,000 BP. (See my papers on deciphering UP(E): The Upper Paleolithic "Double Goddess" and Highlights of the Decipherment of UP(E).)
In addition to these paired graphic signs ('protolanguage'), full oral language systems may be assumed. A. Marshack has identified and analyzed numerous lunar calendar and other notation systems from Africa, Europe and Asia [(1991). The roots of civilization: The cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol and notation. Mount Kisco, NY: Moyer-Bell].
In a remarkable parallel to Upper Paleolithic European geometric signs, the Australian Aboriginal Panaramitee petroglyph tradition appears to have crystallized around 15-18,000 BP and continues to the recent times. I believe these markings reflect a glyphic semiotic system, containing both non-iconic and iconic elements (cupules, abraded grooves, circles, chevrons, 'tracks' and 'rain' signs), used to effect release of the life-force, as rain, game animals, and ancestral creator beings
Mental Model or Template of Mind: 'Mythic and Linguistic Modeling of the World', symbols and narratives, after Merlin Donald [(1991). Origins of the Modern Mind]. Innovation of new symbols using analogic matrices and predictions; external memory of oral tradition; inferred language. Drawing on Piaget theory of child development of intelligence, Upper Paleolithic technology implies 'formal operations' [Wynn, T. (1989). The Evolution of Spatial Intelligence; (1996) The evolution of tools and symbolic behavior. In A. Lock and C. Peters (eds.), Handbook of Symbolic Evolution]. Full brain reorganization, after Terrence Deacon [(1997). The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: Norton].
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