UP Gallery #1 Animals and Quaternions

Comment: These are images of animals are typical of Upper Paleolithic European rock art found in caves. As I have argued (see Publications), by the time of the Magdalenian, there appears to be a religious symbol system in which four animal symbols, horse, bison, ibex and deer, are structured in a complementarity relationship or 'quaternion'. Once utilized in such a semiotic system, the animal symbols can function as a complex, multi-leveled mnemonic device, an 'encyclopedia' of Magdalenian social and naturalist knowledge and spiritual values.

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