#study 4

1 January 2017 - study 3 / 4

After looking at my analysis from my last two entries, I wanted to shine light on how prehistorians that I have been referencing, specifically Lewis-Williams and Clottes, have misinterpreted research and established theories noted as common within the field.

I wanted to negotiate the interpretation of cave walls as a thin-membrane separating the other realm and this world. I will also connect it to specific parietal art such as the handprints and the Spotted Horses. To begin, prehistorians have studied parietal cave art primarily through previous hypothesis and interpretation for the art. It is believed that images of creatures, like the Spotted Horse, were a way for the conscious mind to interpret hallucinations.[1] However, for the referred common hallucination, zoopsia, the hallucination of animals are in its full form. Whether speaking or not, as described of personal experience by Mike Williams, the animals aren’t always deformed, usually the strange creatures are of seeing masked humans or illusion of self.[2] Furthermore, to create a horse with such dimensions can be influenced by the conditions of the cave at the time, the culture within the specific society, and the things hunted and gathered by the community. With horses not usually hunted, the amount of horses made must symbolize as something other than informative. Additionally, horses, since not usually seen up close, could be drawn in abnormal ways in caves due to the humans viewing them from a distance or when the animals are in motion.

Addressing the handprints, prehistorians have considered the handprints as an entrance or exit from the other realm.[3] This is believed, by prehistorians, that it was ritually done with the idea that the humans were hallucinating through drug or other forms to reach an altered state of consciousness. However, some have interpreted, due to the situation of the cave and the time frame it would have been created, that these hallucinations were not always intentionally dosed by the society or shaman. With pockets of carbon dioxide gas and sensory deprivation in the cave, the humans could conduct the creation of the images with the idea that the spirits themselves were guiding them.[4] Although luring away from the belief practices, the handprints could well easily be classifications of existence. It can be interpreted as signatures. Ideas that stray away from shaman beliefs are difficult to find, but the point stands that all shamanistic influences on parietal cave art are just hypothesis. Although taken as truth for some people, it can be debunked as secular works of art.

[1] Mike Williams, Prehistoric Belief: Shamans, Trance and the Afterlife (Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010), 34-35.

[2] Williams, Prehistoric Belief, 41.

[3] Clottes and Lewis-Williams, Shamans of Prehistory, 94.