#study 3

1 January 2017 - study 3 / 4

As part three of my research about shamanism in Upper Paleolithic parietal cave art, I have found another image in Pech Merle. The ‘wounded man’ is one image found in the cave that has stirred debate among prehistorians.

Initially, the image is seen as evidence of ritual violence due to the multiple lines protruding out of the figure. With about nine lines sticking out of the anthropomorphic body, we can interpret at least two of the lines were the arms. Yet, the others are perceived as spears.[1] To depict images of a wounded man brings to question what situation would allow this severity of attack. Especially, with a brace-like image touching the figure, the clues to what the image could translate to is even more obscene.

In one instance, Lewis-Williams has reinterpreted figures seemingly wounded as spiritual rather than physical. As most of his shamanistic interpretations with parietal art, Lewis-Williams suggests that the image has to do with trance and hallucination.[2] The spears would be symbols to the feelings that are associated with altered states of consciousness. Actions like taking hallucinogens, deprivation of senses, meditation, and even rigorous dancing could manipulate or increase specific senses, such as touch and sight. In relation to shamans, Lewis-Williams negotiates that the spears parallel to the pricking sensation that are triggered by altered states of consciousness, and types of hallucinations would consider the piercing feeling sourced by arrows, knives, or other forms of puncturing.[3] Furthermore, there is the symbol of the brace signs. With the touching of the back of the head, prehistorians have suggested that it can be translated as the connection to the other realm believed to be just past the thin-membraned cave walls.[4] This link has been suggested in multiple situations between anthropomorphic figures and the brace signs.

Another image in the cave that I researched are the handprints, both negative and positive. Similar to the ‘wounded man’, handprints can be found among other west European Upper Paleolithic caves. Although some view the hands as signatures for artists who created the images or those who have visited the caves, others believe it associates with the shaman belief of the other realms.[5] The shamanistic value that these handprints are interpreted to have are that with their hand painted on they are either entering the other realm in negative prints, or creatures would be able to enter this world in positive prints. Under the criterion that Upper Paleolithic humans practiced beliefs, the ideas are qualified; however, these intentions are only hypothesis and cannot be determined as definite.

Studies of shamanic influence in parietal cave art has been heavily reliant on the idea that hallucinations helped in the creation of the images. Only a small portion of parietal art have been thoroughly studied to hypothesis as influenced by shamanic practices; there are still a great amount of, currently believed, secular parietal art.

[1] Aldhouse-Green and Aldhouse-Green, Quest for the Shaman, 208.

[2] Aldhouse-Green and Aldhouse-Green, Quest for the Shaman, 208

[3] Lewis-Williams, Mind in the Cave, 277.

[4] Lewis-Williams, Mind in the Cave, 279.