A Journey to the Origins

of Human Creativity

NIGEL SPIVEY

BA SIC

B
BOOKS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
 NX
440
565
To Anna-Louise
sine quo non
2005
CONTENTS
SCOTT

First published in 2005 by BBC Books, BBCWorldwide Limited, Woodlands, 80Wood Lane,
London WI 2 OTT
I THE HUMAN ARTIST 6
Copyright © Nigel Spivey 2005
Published by Basic Books, 2 THE BIRTH OFTHE IMAGINATION 16
A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No par-t of this book may be
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3 MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN so
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4 ONCE UPON A TIME 84
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 6 ART AND POWER 154

A CIP catalog record for this book is avai lable from the Library of Congr·ess

ISBN-13: 978-0-465-08181-3 (he); ISBN 0-465-08181-9 (he) 7 SEEING THE INVISIBLE 200
ISBN-13: 978-0-465-08182-0 (pbk): IS BN 0-465-08182-7 (pbk)

Set in Gill Sans and Plantin

8 IN THE FACE OF DEATH 254
OS I I 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

SELECTED FURTHER READ ING 282

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 284

INDEX 286
 THE ONE DAY IN THE AUTUMN OF 1879 a Spanish nobleman and his daughter set out on a
little adventure. They were going to explore a cave not far from the family estate at
BIRTH Puente San Miguel, in the Cantabria region of northern Spain. The nobleman's name
OF THE was Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, and his daughter- not yet in her teens- was called
Maria. Together they made for the hillside of Altamira, which had lately been reported
IMAGINATION as a site of prehistoric occupation. To use the language of the time, Altamira was the sort
of place where troglodytes or 'people before Adam' were thought to have sheltered.
As a keen amateur archaeologist, de Sautuola had high hopes of what he might find
at Altamira. The bones of strange animals might be scattered around; perhaps traces of
fires kindled long ago. With any luck, and close investigation of the cave floor, some
rudimentary tools or implements might also be retrieved.
De Sautuola was not merely hunting for curiosities. When it came to publishing
his discoveries at Altarnira, he gravely noted that his ultimate motive for making the
expedition with Maria was to 'tear away the thick veil that separates us from the origins
and customs of the ancient inhabitants of these mountains '. Once he and Maria were
inside the cave, he crouched down and began to examine the ground by lantern light.
It was cool and damp in the cave, but spacious too. While her father was poking and

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 THE BIRT H OF T HE IM AG INATION

scraping at the floor, Maria wandered off to do some exploring of her own. It was not
long before the darkness of Altamira echoed with a child's wondrous cry.
'Look, Papa- paintings of oxen! '
So a young girl was the first modern human to set eyes upon the 'gallery' of
prehistoric paintings for which Altamira would become renowned (Fig. 6) .
Being small, Maria had a better view of the cave's low ceiling than her father.
However, her recognition of the animals whose images were ranged over Altamira's
natural vault was not quite accurate. These were aurochs - a type of bison that had been
extinct for thousands of years. Herds of them were depicted- standing, grazing, running,
sleeping. And around these aurochs there were other four-legged beasts: horses, ibexes,
boar. Gazing up at what his daughter had found, de Sautuola was almost speechless
with excitement. He knew instinctively that this art was very old indeed; but it was more
than instinct tl1at told him so. The cave was littered with debris belonging to what would
become known as tl1e Stone Age- or, in archaeological parlance, tl1e Upper Palaeolithic
period (35,000-1 0,000 years ago) . Moreover, de Sautuola could see sinlliarities between
tl1e bison depicted here at Altamira and some bone carvings of animals lately discovered
in caves in France.
The gentleman-scholar lost no time in communicating tl1e news. It created a
sensation, understandable even to this day, although, for reasons of preservation, visitors
are now admitted only to a replica of the cave. Gazing over Altamira's rocky surfaces,
the viewer soon appreciates that tl1e word 'painting' is inadequate here. The uneven
contours of the rock have been ingeniously incorporated to give the animals a bulky,
almost three-din1ensional presence. Big bovine shoulders loom up in the half-light: and,
while tl1e exact species of bison depicted is no longer to be seen, we cannot fail to be
struck by the quality of close observation on display. How the animals stood while at
pasture, how they collapsed when recumbent or wounded- tl1e Altamira depictions are,
as we should say, convincing. The colours, too, are memorable: predominantly red and
6 A detail of the cave paintings at Altamira, Spain, c. I I,OOO BC, which Maria and Marcelino de Sautuola
black, but with shadings of form also picked out in brown, purple, yellow, pink and white.
discovered by chance .
These strong organic pigments, derived from various oxides and carbons, play their
part in giving the work a powerfully earthy depth and substance. All in all, it might be
concluded tl1at tl1e paintings here are too good to be true.
Sadly for de Sautuola, many of his contemporaries thought just that. After an
initial accolade from the press, royal visits to the cave and so on, doubts regarding the

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 THE BIRTH OF THE IMAGINATION THE BIRTH OF THE IMAGINATION

authenticity of the art at Altarnira began to be voiced. Nothing comparable to their scale caused ilieological controversy in Victorian Britain wiili his theory of evolution by
and pictorial delicacy had been found at prehistoric sites then known to archaeological natural selection- a process often summarized as 'the survival of the fittest', though
connoisseurs. One premature explanation of Altarnira suggested that the paintings Darwin himself did not coin that phrase- but so far as it confirmed stereotypical
had been done during the Roman occupation of the Iberian peninsula. Within a year of Western attitudes to the prehistoric past, Darwin's model was widely accepted. If
de Sautuola's announcement of the find, however, more poisonous rumours were evolution favoured the survival of the fittest, and humankind was set on an upward
circulating. An artist was seen going into the cave (de Sautuola had commissioned him curve of progress in adapting to understand and control the world, then those humans
to make copies of the ceiling): word went round that he was the one who had painted left behind- especially those left behind many thousands of years ago- must be
it in the first place. At home and abroad, de Sautuola found himself mocked as a dupe, congenitally backward, ignorant and clumsy.
or suspected of perpetrating a hoax. He died in 1888, a deeply disappointed and widely Already in 1651 , the English philosopherThomas Hobbes had fastidiously
disbelieved man. His friends said he was brokenhearted by the whole affair. described the 'ill condition' of humans living in a pre-civilized 'state of nature '. It was
Young Maria would live to see her father's honour thoroughly redeemed. But before a situation, he declared, of 'continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of
we lament the scepticism that brought misery to a pioneer explorer of prehistoric art, man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'. At the time when the paintings at Altamira
let us admit our own primary reaction to what we see at Altamira, and at other great were found, most people would have imagined the typical 'caveman' as some shaggy,
underground sites subsequently revealed in Spain and southern France- most notably low-browed creature, his ground-scraping knuckles clamped to a knotty club. This savage
the caves ofLascaux and Chauvet. 'Amazing'; 'incredible'; 'astonishing': we reach for might have chased bison to fill his belly, but to represent the animal in delicate profile,
tl1e cliched language of admiration, and for once it denotes a genuine mystery. No with careful, sensitive hues- such fine aesthetic capacity was surely beyond belief?
sample of early human handiwork is more perplexing than the large-scale cave paintings So went the logic of orthodox opinion. However, even the most tenacious
of Palaeolithic Europe. What follows here is an attempt to make sense of what the images upholders of this view were forced to reconsider as further painted caves came to light,
might mean, and why they were painted on subterranean walls. A particular theory is especially in France. In 1901 , for example, two major sites near Les Eyzies in the
pursued, and other ilieories rejected - but they are ilieories all ilie same. In the end, P erigord region- Les Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume- were confirmed as bona fide.
amazement may remain the proper response. What we can establish for certain, however, The following year, a major shift in attitudes was signalled when Emile Cartailhac, one
is that these paintings are not localized miracles. Altamira belongs to a wider process of of the French experts who had dismissed Altarnira as a prank, published a penitential
human development, and it is all tl1e more exciting for that. essay, accepting that his doubts had been in error: the paintings at Altamira, and others
like them, really did belong to 'the dawn of time' . In the summer of 1902, Cartailliac
joined oilier delegates from a scientific conference at Montauban in making a tour to
THE CREATI VE EXPLOSION
inspect the several painted caves in the area. A consensus was declared: art indeed
Radiocarbon dating of me pigments used in the Altamira paintings has established that existed in prehistory, and the science of understanding it had only just begun.
the cave investigated by Maria and Marcelino de Sautuola was decorated between Discoveries of further caves proliferated throughout the twentieth century. France
13,300 and 14,900 years ago. This more or less confirms the notional antiquity assigned yielded not only examples of painted surfaces, but also relief figures, such as the 'frieze'
to the images by de Sautuola back in 1879. But beyond the element of forgivable of animals brought to light in 1909 at Cap Blanc, again near Les Eyzies, and the two
surprise, why were the learned contemporaries of de Sautuola so reluctant to believe him? bison moulded in clay at the end of the deep cave at Tuc d ' Audoubert in the Pyrenees.
The answer is that Altamira simply did not fit with prevailing scientific and popular Most stories of modern discovery contain a ration of drama. Appropriately,
views about the origin and development of the human species. Charles Darwin may have perhaps, it was while searching for a lost dog that several schoolboys came across the

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 TH E BIRTH OF T HE IM AG IN AT IO N

splendid menagerie painted within the cave at Lascaux, near Montignac, in 1940 (Fig. 7).
And while the finding (in 1994) of even more remarkable animal scenes in France's
Ardeche Gorge came about from deliberate underground exploration, the subsequent
dispute over ownership of this site- named Chauvet Cave after the potholing enthusiast
who first flashed a torch beam over it- is something of a legal soap opera.
A pair of rhinoceroses lock horns for a fight; a natural event recorded with swift,
confident brush strokes. A set of feline profiles overlap, as if casually anticipating the
draughtsman's rules of depth and perspective by many millennia (Fig. 8). Astonishing?
Indeed. But not absolutely incredible- because the paintings of Chauvet Cave, firmly
dated to over 30,000 years ago, provide merely the most spectacular indicators to date
of what some archaeologists refer to as a general 'Creative Explosion' occurring in the
Upper Palaeolithic period (c. 40,000-10,000 years ago).The phenomenon is not
confined either to France or to continental Europe. Essentially, it marks the ascendancy
of a particular biological species, Homo sapiens, the 'knowing human' type that has come
to dominate the Earth's surface.
A summary ofthe background to this arrival of anatomically modern humans may
be found in a separate section of this book (see page 14). Here, it is enough to observe
that paintings on cave walls belong to a catalogue of telltale relics left by the ingenious and
creative Homo sapiens c. 40,000-30,000 years ago. Among these relics are the following:

1 Flint tools, produced in such a way as to be exquisitely symmetrical. Such

symmetry may have assisted their function (if, for example, axes were thrown
as missiles); otherwise it exists to invest a functional object with aesthetic value.
2 Perforated teeth and shells, collected for the sake of bodily ornament. Items of
jewellery, such as the necklace of shells found at Mandu Mandu in Western
Australia, are sure signs of personal embellishment; possibly also indicators of
social status.
3 Depositions of food and gifts along with burial of the dead. Excavated burials
7 (top) Detail of the 'Salon of the Bulls' at Lascaux, near Montignac, France, c. 18,000 Be.
at the Cro-Magnon shelter near Les Eyzies and at the site of Dolni-Vestonice in
the Czech Republic may not qualify structurally as tombs, but the presence of 8 (above) The masterfully depicted feline faces in the 'Lion Panel' of Chauvet Cave, France, c. 32- 30,000 BC.

grave goods is suggestive of ritual, and some concept of an afterlife.

4 Scratchings on bone and antler that seem intentional and ordered. Several
examples of such markings from the site of Zhoukoudian, near Beijing in China,

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 THE BIRTH OF THE IMAGINATION THE BIRTH OF THE IMAGINATION

remain open to interpretation, while an ingenious case has been made for reading The philosophers of Classical Greece recognized it as a defining trait of humans
notches on the handle of a tool found at Ishango, in central equatorial Africa, as a to 'delight in works of imitation ' - to enjoy the very act and triumph of representation.
notational system of tallies that marked time according to phases of the moon . If we were close to a real lion or snake, we should feel frightened. But a well-executed
picture of a lion or snake will give u s pleasure. Why suppose that our Palaeolithic
Certain aspects of this cultural 'take-off', such as vocal communication (singing included), ancestors were any different?
dance, and painting done directly on to bodies, can never be known. Much small-scale This simple acceptance of cave-paintings as art for art's sake has a certain appeal.
or portable art may have vanished . And in many parts of the world there are markings To think of Lascaux as a gallery or salon allows it to be a sort of special viewing place
on rocks that simply cannot be securely dated by archaeologists. These are reasons why, vvhere the handiwork of accomplished aTtistes might be displayed . And at Lascaux, the
in any investigation of the origins of art, attention focuses upon the cave-paintings of evident care with which individual animals have been abstracted from any natural
Palaeolithic Europe. Accepting that they are the best-preserved and most visible signs background or landscape makes it tempting to suppose that the painters sought to create,
of the global creative explosion, how do we start to explain their appearance? as it were, 'life studies' of their subjects. Plausibly, daily existence in parts of Palaeolithic
Europe may not have been so hard, with an abundance of ready food, and therefore the
leisure time for art.
ART FOR ART'S SAKE?
The problems with this explanation, however, are various. In the first place, the
Pablo Picasso, arguably the most illustrious artist of the twentieth century, seems to have proliferation of archaeological discoveries - and this includes some of the wtJrld's
paid a visit to the newly discovered Lascaux cave in 1941. 'We have learnt nothing! ' is innumerable rock art sites that cannot be dated -has served to emphasize a remarkably
reported as his awed, almost indignant comment, implying that the anonymous Stone limited repertoire of subjects. The images that recur are those of animals; and,
Age draughtsmen of Lascaux had miraculously anticipated the representational aims commonly, similar types of animal. Human figures are unusual; and when they do make
and achievements of art within modern, 'civilized' society. Uncannily (as it must have an appearance, they are rarely done with the same attention to form accorded to the
seemed to him), the prominent animals at Lascaux were bulls - favoured subjects of animals. If Palaeolithic artists were simply seeking to represent the beauty of the world
Picasso, and indeed, featuring in one of his earliest paintings as a boy. Also, some of the around them, would they not have left a far greater range of pictures - of trees and
animals depicted at Lascaux have their form emphasized in thick black outline. This is flowers, of the sun and the stars?
also uncannily similar to a pictorial device favoured at one time by Picasso and his post- A further question to the theory of art for art's sake is posed by the high incidence
Impressionist contemporaries, some of whom would be nicknamed in 1905 as les fauves of Palaeolithic images that appear not be imitative of any reality whatsoever. These are
(the wild ones). It must have unnerved the Spanish painter, to see a stylistic invention geometrical shapes or patterns consisting of dots or lines. Such marks may be found
pre-empted by many thousands of years: 'the shock of the old', we might say. Later, at isolated or repeated over a particular surface, but also scattered across more recognizable
a Parisian exhibition in 1953, Picasso re-created for his own work the flickering , torchlit forms. A good example of this may be seen in the geologically spectacular grotto of Pech
experience of viewing a prehistoric cave - such was his empathy for ancestral comrades. Merle, in the Lot region of France (Fig. 9). Here we encounter some favourite animals
Picasso's reaction is one that many of us would share. Identifying the precise species from the Palaeolithic repertoire - a pair of stout-bellied horses. But over and around the
of bison, ibex or mammoth might be beyond us. But, like young Maria at Altamira, we horses' outlines are multiple dark spots, daubed in disregard for the otherwise naturalistic
have little essential difficulty in seeing what these ancient artists were trying to represent. representation of the animals. What does such patterning inutate?
Instinctively, then, we may want to 'update' the earliest human artists by assuming There is also the factor of location . The caverns of Altamira and Lascaux might
that they painted for the sheer joy of painting. conceivably qualify as underground galleries, but many other paintings have been found

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 TH E BIRTH O F THE IMAGINATI O N

in recesses totally unsuitable for any kind of viewing- tight nooks and crannies d1at must
have been awkward even for the artists to penetrate, let alone for anyone else wanting
to see me art. For example, a painted cave adjoining Pech Merle, called Le Combe!, can
only be reached by squeezing dU'ough a narrow cleft in d1e rock and crawling along on
one's stomach; mere was never any room to admire me handiwork in comfort.
Finally, we may doubt me notion mat me Upper Palaeolimic was a Garden of Eden
in which food came readily, leaving humans ample time to amuse memselves wim art.
For Europe it was still me Ice Age. An estimate of me basic level of sustenance d1en
necessary for individual human survival has been judged at 2200 calories per day. This
consideration, combined wim me stark iconographic emphasis upon animals in me cave
art, has persuaded some archaeologists mat me primary motive behind Palaeolimic
images must lie wim me primary activity of Palaeolidllc people - hunting.

A RT A ND HUNTING

Hunting is a skill. Tracking, stalking, chasing and killing me prey are difficult, sometimes
dangerous activities. What if the process could be made easier - by art?
In me early decades of the twentiem century, an influential French archaeologist,
Abbe Henri Breuil (1877-1961 ), made mis suggestion me basis for his theory d1at
d1e cave-paintings were all about 'sympametic magic'. The reason why Palaeolimic artists
9 T he 'Spotted H orses' in th e caves of Pech Merle, France, c. 20,000 BC, with t he intriguing patterns of dark spots
around the horses' outlines.T he hand stencils may be later touches. so often depicted anin1als was mat me business of hunting animals preoccupied mem
and meir contemporaries. And me artists strived diligently to make their animal images
evocative and realistic because mey were attempting to 'capture me spirit' of d1eir prey.
As Breuil stressed, these debutant human artists clearly did not draw like children.
What could have prompted meir studious attention to making such naturalistic,
recognizable images? For Breuil, it had to come from some extraordinary belief about
the power of in1ages. If a hunter were able to make a true likeness of some animal, d1en
d1at animal was virtually trapped. Images, therefore, had me magical capacity to confer
success or luck in me hunt.
As wim me interpretation of cave-paintings as art for art's sake, mere is a general
element to me theory of hunting magic mat is in'U'nediately attractive. After all, anyone
who has ever kissed a photograph knows that images can serve me purpose of wishful
dUnking. Many instances are known of societies in which images are honoured as

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 THE BIRTH O F T H E IMAG INATION THE BIRTH OF THE IMAG INATION

potential surrogates of reality. Voodoo-typ e su perstitions, fo r instance, rely on the belief of foo d remains left around heartl1s or in middens (rubbish dumps) . If the paintings
that sticking p ins in a wax effigy of someone will m ake that person feel pain . Art thereby were created for th e purpose of successful hunting, it would be logical to expect that the
becom es a m edium for m agic. And while we might accept that the image of a lion or animals depicted on the cave walls were tl1ose featuring in tl1e daily diet of the cave's
a snake does not terrify us like the real thing, it is also well documented that we are quite inhabitants. But this correlation does not hold. At L ascaux, the animals painted were bulls,
capable of responding to an image as if it were real. Being a C atholic priest, Breuil knew horses and red deer. M ost of the bones discarded in th e cave, however, were of reindeer.
well enough that m any people of his time could stand before a picture or statue of the At Altamira they drew bison, but the associated bones were those of deer, goat and wild
Virgin M ary with all the resp ect due to an animate presence. boar, with shellfis h adding a little variety. M ammoths appear with som e frequency in the
Breuil could point to further specific features of the cave-paintings that favoured caves of the Ardeche and Perigord regions, but not in tl1e record of human subsistence
his approach . In numerous images, an animal was shown apparently struck by arrows at tl1at time. As one arch aeologist puts it, 'the Upper Palaeolithic painters had horses and
or spears, or else marked as if wounded or snared (Fig. 10) . As for the m any animals not bison on their mind, wh ereas they had reindeer and ptarmiga n in their stom ach s'.
shown as direct victims of the hunt, they could belong to art's m agical purpose If not propelled by hunger, why did they p aint? Although the science of
nonetheless. L arge herds, with well-fed or pregnant beasts signifie d yet m ore wishful neurophysiology was in its infancy, Breuil and his contemporaries sensed that it was
thinking on the part of hunters hoping fo r the bountiful increase of their prey. And, of fundamentally unnatural for the human mind to produce and use representational
course, it was the mysterious or occult function of the paintings that, for Breuil, images in the first place, citing the rep orted case of a Turkish M u slim who, having had n o
explained why they were located deep under ground . Magic had to be performed in experience of pictures or drawings, fa iled to identify a two-dimensional image of a horse
dark places, out of sight; it was a secret operation . because he could not walk around it. The cap acity for images, though quickly acquired,
Breuil's theory appealed to those who envisaged the Ice Age in Europe as a period did not seem to be innate. If we need to have som e mental experience or training in order
of hard survival, when m ammoths roam ed the land, and fi erce bears competed with to recognize symbols, how did we ever acquire the ability to create them in the first place?
humans fo r rocky shelters. And the elem ent of superstitious or irration al belief suited So tl1e quest continued - the quest to explain how this peculiar human habit of
anyone whose view of the past was shaped by the sort of desk-bound antl1ropology so representation began .
eloquently presented by J. G . Frazer in his multi-volume compendium, The Golden B ough
(1907-1 5) . Subtitled 'A Study in M agic and Religion ', F razer's work seemed, from
the poet T.S . Eli ot's admiring p oint of view, to create 'an abysm of time'. Yet the Frazerian A RT AS A SYMBOLIC SYSTEM

pursuit of data from 'primitive' societies relied up on an ideal of progress characteristic Anyone who considers th e practicalities of interior decorati on at Altamira and Lascaux
ofVictorian Britain. Frazer himself styled it as 'the long m arch, th e slow and toilsom e will suppose tl1at som e system of scaffolding must have been erected for the painters.
ascent, of humanity from savagery to civilisation '. Trust in magicians was, fo r Frazer, Experts confirm tl1e supp osition . Images were not casually scrawled on tl1e walls, but laid
a key defining feature of 'savage' societies. out as part of a considered programme or schem e of decoration.
Antl1rop ology has m oved on from such complacency. But the m ain objection to It is to the credit of another French scholar, Andre Leroi-Gourhan ( 1911-86),
Breuil's theory arises not fro m ideological disdain; rather from m ore attentive that the theory he offered as an alternative to art-fo r-hunting was based on an acceptan ce
arch aeological examination of the ancient debris within the caves - in par ticular, analysis of Palaeolithic imager y as a grand project- anything but random sketches. Strongly
influenced by the Stru cturalist school of anthropology (see page 89), L eroi-Gourhan
proposed considering the cave-paintings as a symbolic system based on binary
I0 (previous page) Wounded bison from Niaux caves, near Ariege, France, c. l4,000 BC. op positions or pairings, witl1 the essential division being that between m an and woman.

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 THE BIRTH OF THE IM AG INATION THE BIRTH OF THE IMAGINATION

Notoriously, there are very few images of humans in the caves. But what if certain existence of people in the Palaeolithic past is difficult to resist, even if the distance is
animals were to be associated with males, and others with females? With reasons ranging measured not only across time, but also across continents. Just such a non-judgemental
from the elementary to the sophisticated, Leroi-Gourhan argued that horses, ibexes and explanation by analogy has lately emerged, injecting fresh energy in to the debate about
deer were symbolically masculine, while aurochs and bison were feminine. His analysis the beginnings of humanity's gift for representation. The theory comes from Africa,
defies summary: but ultimately - as might be guessed - it leads to the supposition of and how it evolved is worth tracing in some detail.
some kind of fertility rite staged in the caves, for which the images must serve as liturgy. The Drakensberg mountains are the main contours of southern Africa. To the east,
Some would say that Leroi-Gourhan's approach was music to the ears of anyone beyond a coastal plain, lies Durban; due north is Johannesburg and the interior plateau
raised on the psychological doctrines of Sigmund Freud. Certainly there were Freudian or veldt; within the range, geologically, is the small, snow-topped kingdom of Lesotho.
overtones to the way in which Leroi-Gourhan explained the geometric motifs that Most of the Drakensberg peaks now belong to the province ofKwaZulu-Natal. In and
recurred in the caves. Again he identified a male-female gender divide. Straight lines around this area are many place-names that resonate in South Africa's modern history,
and dots signified male, while circular or enclosing forms were emblematic of female sites of conflict between Boer settlers, British colonists and Zulu tribesmen: Spion Kop,
form. Other archaeologists had already noted certain painted shapes or graffiti suggestive Ladysmith, Rorke's Drift and more. But before the British, the Boers or the Zulus
of one particular part of female anatomy - the vulva - which favoured this sexually impacted on this landscape, it had been long occupied by a people whose official place
symbolic reading. Leroi-Gourhan himself, however, remained reluctant to specify the in history is so uncertain that no one is quite sure what to call them. They used to be
implied fertility rite. referred to collectively as 'Bushmen'; lately 'the San' has been preferred. In fact, both
Today it may be hard to resist being amused by the sort of interpretation that sees names have pejorative connotations, but since there is no ready alternative, we shall u se
every straight line or spear as phallic, every circle as a womb. Yet, as even his critics agree, the term 'Bushmen' here, for the sake of convenience and without disrespect.
Leroi-Gourhan was surely right to persevere in his assumption that the Palaeolithic The Bushmen's modes of habitation and subsistence in the Drakensberg changed
artists worked intentionally; that there was a method and a meaning to their work as a very little over thousands of years. The men hunted animals, using spears and arrows
whole. But if one problem with his theory is that it depends upon a modern obsession tipped with poison; the women gathered plants, grasses and roots, with no other tool
with sexuality, then the general question arises of how we should proceed. We still need than a weighted digging-stick. Small communities moved from upland to lowland areas
some explanation of how d1e knack or capacity for representation first clicked into place. as seasons changed, making use of natural shelters where available. Like other nomadic
Can any analysis bridge the distance between modern viewers and ancient artists? peoples, the Drakensberg Bushmen needed very few possessions, so one might have
guessed that they left few traces of their presence in this territory. This is, indeed, the
case- except in the crags and crevices of the sandstone escarpment there are thousands
OUT OF AFRICA
of painted images.
In the age of our great-grandparents- the generation for whom the work of}.G. Frazer Comparable in quantity to the rock art sites of the Kakadu area in northern
was enlightening- there was little objection to making comparisons between the Australia, the Bushmen paintings of the Drakensberg are not catalogued; unlike the
prehistoric past and communities of so-called 'primitive peoples' that had survived Kakadu images, they are entirely anonymous and impossible to date. Paintings done only
(by isolation) into the industrialized world. Today, it would be thought offensive and 200 years ago may look brighter than work done 20,000 years earlier, and certain scenes
misleading to describe, for example, the existence of Australian Aborigines around (such as men shown carrying guns) appear to be references to the colonial intruders.
1800 AD as equivalent to the Stone Age. And yet the impulse to draw some analogies Essentially, however, the numerous images seem very sinlliar and coherent within the
between a surviving or documented society of hunter-gatherers and d1e hunter-gathering region, and similar to paintings left in some other places occupied by the Bushmen.

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 T HE BIRTH OFTHE IMAGINATION

These were not always recognized for what they were. In 1918 climbers exploring
the Brandberg Massif (of modern Namibia) came across rock paintings in a certain
ravine. Coloured copies were duly made and shown some years later to Henri Breuil,
then attending a conference in Johannesburg. The Abbe pronounced that no indigenous
people had made these images, but foreigners of 'Nilotic-Mediterranean origin'-
perhaps emigres from Bronze Age Crete, whose style seemed apparent in a particular
figure dubbed by Breuil as the 'White Lady' . It has since transpired that this figure is
male, and typical Bushman work; but to upholders of the apartheid system- whereby
white and black people in South Africa were kept apart - Breuil's verdict was welcome
proof that the earliest inhabitants of this land had been Europeans. The notion was
so pleasing to the country's colonial administrators that, during the Second World War,
they gave academic refuge to Breuil in Johannesburg- sponsored by none other than
the country's premier, ].C. Smuts.
Breuil's preposterous gloss of the 'White Lady' is perhaps sufficient indication of
how little specialist attention was devoted to the images left by the Bushmen- images that
were, of course, gradually fading from modern view. The neglect more or less persisted
until the early 1960s, when a young local schoolmaster started to explore the Drakensberg
paintings more studiously. His name was David Lewis-Williams, and what began as
a teacher's pastime led first to a doctorate, then a professorial chair, and ultimately a
dedicated Rock Art Institute (at the University ofWitwatersrand in Johannesburg) .
The conspicuous subjects of Bushmen paintings throughout the Drakensberg
are animals (Fig. 11 ) . Often enough it seems there is a scene in which some four-legged
prey, such as an antelope, is surrounded by figures armed with bows or spears. Casual
II (above) A scene from the
viewers might readily suppose that these were characteristic reflections of daily life main frieze of the Game Pass
among the Bushmen, to whom hunting was supremely important (their disputes with Shelter. Kamberg, South Africa.
Date uncertain.
the settlers arose mostly from access to game or cattle raiding) . But, as Lewis-Williams
showed, one does not have to look very hard at the Drakensberg paintings before 12 (right) A drawi ng of a detail
from the main frieze of the
realizing that tl1ese depictions of hunting are not so straightforward as tl1at. Some of the Game Pass Shelter. showing a
human figures , on closer examination, appear to have hoofs for feet, and animal heads. dying eland and a figure with
hooves and an animal head.
Otl1er figures, seemingly realistic at first glance, have their necks represented in lines
of many white stipples. A certain large sort of antelope, the eland, did indeed appear
often and prominently in the paintings. But the Bushmen had many other sources of
food, four-legged or not. Why so much emphasis upon the eland? As for these hybrid

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 T H E BIRTH OF T H E IMAG IN ATIO N THE BIRTH OFTHE IMAGINATION

human-animal figures- therianthropic is the official descriptive term for them- why an inspiration for the hunt, and someone with access to the spirit world. This is not only
were some of them appearing to snatch at an eland's tail? th e stuff of archives: to this day, shamans exist among the Kalahari Bushmen. Being
Lewis-Williams aired all these queries, which arose from interpreting the good-natured about visits from inquisitive researchers, tourists and film crews alike, the
Drakensberg images as scenes of everyday life among the Bushmen. He was also aware Bushmen have repeatedly confirmed the central significance of shamanic rituals to their
that while hunter-gathering peoples may seem, in Western eyes, to be leading remarkably society. Bushman shamans have their own metaphoric ways of recounting how they
simple lives, at one with nature, anthropological research invariably demonstrated experience their connection with the supernatural; they speak in terms of being stretched
otherwise. Hunter-gatherers around the world tended to organize their lives around on ropes, lines or threads to an almighty creator or some netherworld of ancestors. But
very precise and prescriptive systems of ritual and supernatural belief. Why presume (again thanks to an open disposition on the part of those concerned) it is also possible
any less of the Bushmen? to witness a 'trance dance ', in which a Bushman shaman performs.
Answers to questions about the meaning of the Drakensberg images would, naturally, This was how it happened in a small kraal or village not far from Tsumkwe in
lie with the Bushmen who painted them. Despite near-genocide in the past, and the more northwest Namibia. At dusk a fire was lit, around which the women of the village, with
recent imposition of borders and passports, Bushmen have survived in the Kalahari their infants, sat in a circle. They began to set up a rhythm of chanting and clapping.
Desert, especially in parts of Botswana and northwest Namibia. But the problem for those Various of their menfolk were around, including the aged headman of the village; some
trying to track down the meaning of Bushman art is that since their displacement from the began to tread around the circle, humming along with the songs. The star of the show
Drakensberg to the Kalahari over a century ago, the Bushmen have not been able to sustain
the artistic tradition. The Kalahari is a very different terrain from the Drakensberg: it
offers few rock surfaces or shelters suitable for painting. What did persist among the
Kalahari Bushmen, however, was a powerful strand of religious practice and belief that
could be connected to previous images; also, the rare testimony of Bushmen voices
THE BLEEK AND LLOYD ARCHIVE
recorded during the nineteenth century and kept in an archive at Cape Town. Combining
these two sources, Lewis-Williams was able to make a convincing case that the thousands
of Bushmen images in the Drakensberg were far from being scenes of daily life; rather, D EFINED BY one anthropologist as 'the
harmless people', the Bushmen communities
of southern Africa were persecuted throughout
the archive kept at the University of Cape Town.
Others, however. provide a rich verbatim account

they belonged to the surreal experience of minds and bodies in a state of ecstasy. of hunting techniques, stargazing, medicine and so
the nineteenth century by white settlers and Bantu on. It is from this record that we comprehend the
An eland is in the throes of death (Fig. 12) : its head hangs heavy; its dewlap- the pastoralists alike. Many were exterminated; some centrality of ritual in the lives of the Bushmen.
thick fold of skin below the neck- is sagging; and its hind legs are crossed. The Bushmen were kept as convicts in Cape Town. It was among Christian missionaries thought them irreligious.
say that the crossed hind legs of the eland are a clear sign of poisoned darts taking effect. these prisoners that Wilhelm Sleek ( 1827-75) On the contrary: the most powerful figures in any
did his research. Sleek was a philologist, with a Bushman clan were its spiritual leaders, its ritual
Here, however, we notice something else. The therianthropic figure holding the eland's
primary interest in the clicking language of the specialists. They have their own local titles: to term
tail in one hand, and a spear in the other, appears to have his legs crossed too. He has an Bushmen. Aided by his sister-in-law Lucy Ll oyd, he them 'shamans' is, for the sake of convenience, at
animal's head and hoofs. Can it be, then, that he is also dying? If so, is he a figure who filled numerous notebooks with transcriptions of least preferable to 'witch doctors'. Whatever we call
not only connects between the realms of human and animal, but who also interacts interviews covering all aspects of Bushman life and these elders, the Sleek and Lloyd papers suggest
folklore. A las, two notebooks carrying information that they were very likely to have been the art ists of
between the living and the dead?
about Bushman painting are listed as missing from the Drakensberg and other Bushman-painted sites.
Transcripts of Bushman beliefs and practices point to the reality of just such a
figure in the person of a shaman: a senior individual esteemed as a healer, a rain-maker,

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 THE BIRT H O F TH E IMAGI N ATIO N

then arrived: a diminutive, sinewy old man, wearing only a loincloth and a set of rattles
about his ankles. He now led the stamping around the circle; and for the next two hours
or so he hardly paused as lord of the dance. Sometimes he reached for the heads of those
sitting down, as if to transmit some of his energy to them. Occasionally, he staggered
away into the shadows, doubled up and gasping for breath; at one point, while weaving
across the circle, he fell into the fire and had to be pulled out: sand was heaped over him
to cool him down. Some of the women rose up and followed him. There was no
weariness from them in clapping and singing. It seemed the ceremony could go on as
long as the fire glowed under the stars (Fig. 13) .
It is in such situations that a shaman can go into an 'altered state of consciousness'.
Physically, this manifests itself in various ways: loss of balance, stomach cramps,
hyperventilation and nosebleeds. Mentally, it can lead to hallucinations, the intense
visionary experience of travelling out of body into strange yet convincing places. No one
could draw or paint while in the midst of this sort of emotional seizure. But revealing
or recalling what had come into vision during an altered state of consciousness .. . that
would be truly marvellous, and proof, as it were, of the shaman's special status.
For several decades now, David Lewis-Williams has argued the case that the
thousands of Bushman images left in the Drakensberg are best explained as 'shamanic' :
directly derived from the hallucinatory experiences of shamans while in an altered state
of consciousness. There are, to begin with, clear signs that physiological effects of the
trance dance are depicted: figures doubled up with abdominal spasms; figures with red
lines (blood) streaming from their noses. The marked elongation of many figures may
reflect the reported sensation of being stretched.
13 A Bushman dance at a village near Tsumkwe, northwest N amibia, in the summer of 2004.
Rock surfaces, such as the Game Pass Shelter, became interfaces between reality
and the spirit world, on which the imagery of the trance was recorded and displayed.
To call tl1ese interfaces 'membranes' is not inappropriate. Figures of animals might
emerge from cracks in the stone (as they do) , and placing a hand upon the stone, too,
might give some sense of its potent access to the domain of spirits and ancestors.
No summary matches the eloquence witl1 which Lewis-Williams has pursued
and published this theory: we may simply state here that many experts worldwide accept
it. Anthropologically, it is not an isolated or eccentric phenomenon. Parallels can be
drawn, for instance, between the Bushman shamans and tl1ose among various indigenous
tribes of North America, such as the Yokuts and Numic of California, whose use

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 TH E BIRTH O F T HE IMAGINATIO N THE BIRTH OF THE IMAGINATION

of hallucinogenic substances can be traced in petroglyphs (rock markings) left in sites often fram ed in kaleidoscopic patterns - dots, lozenges, blocks, app earing in multiple
of sacred significance. Evidence also suggests that sham ans or 'clever m en ' among units as networks, tessellations and suchlike. T hese patterns m ay be construed as certain
the Aboriginal communities of northern Australia played a particular role in creating objects in the world - a spider's web, or a hon eycomb. In addition, the subj ect of an
the millennia-old imagery of that region . European colonists m ay have dismissed it altered state of consciou sness m ay feel that he or she is airborne, or in water, or plunging
all as so much mumbo-jumbo, although they were happy to accept stories (and images) through som e vortex or tunnel. Patterns slide one into another, and shapes are fluently
of a m an who could cure lepers with his touch and undergo an agonizing death transformed; in some hypnagogic (half-asleep) or dreaming m oods we may see animals
without dying. appear: to follow Shakespear e's phrasing, we will think a cloud to be very like a whale,
W hat, however, has this to do with the cave-paintings of Europe in the Upper or mistake a bush for a bear.
Palaeolithic period? What characterizes all these sensations is how vivid they are. The nightmare victim
wakes with a scream; the LSD addict m aims himself terribly, convinced that his fi ngers
are extending over the windowsill and on to the road outside. No external reality is there.
THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODE L
Our reaction is entirely to what we see without any direct p erception of the world around
Readers m ay already have gu essed the next m ove in the L ewis-Williams argument. It is us. Such images have been termed as entoptic, 'within the eye'.
not to suggest that Bushmen, N ative Americans and Australian Aborigines are culturally T he Lewis-William s hypothesis, then, is not just that Palaeolithic cave-painting
comparable to people of the Stone Age, but to p oint out that all anatomically m odern was shamanic or sham anistic in origin. It is even more mom entous; suggesting tl1at the
humans - including those of the Palaeolithic - share a brain that is hard-wired (pre- human knack of representational imagery was itself initially triggered by this
programmed) in a certain way. What occurs within this brain when we enter an altered neuropsychological process. In otl1er words, the Palaeolithic painter s were not m aking
state of consciousness is therefore predictable - a common human experience, as likely observations of the world around them; they were transferring on to cave walls the
to have the same visual and visible effects today as it would have don e 35,000 years ago. images tl1ey already had behind their eyes. They were displaying what had com e to them
There are m any ways of inducing the altered state of consciou sness: drugs, in an altered state of consciousness; recoll ecting powerful visions; trying to recapture
dancing, darkness, exh austion, hunger, meditation, migraine and schizophrenia are what they had seen in their hallucinations - even when these had flashed by as a series
among them. In the Western tradition it is by no m eans confined to hippies and a fashion of abstract patterns (Fig. 14).
for the mind-expanding substance known as L SD. Opium takers of the Romantic T he acceptance of this model does not reduce all other cave-painting theories to
period, notably the English writers Thom as D e Quincey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, nonsense. In societies where sham ans are or were esteemed as authorities - including not
were generous in providing verbal descriptions of their visions. And in our own times only tl1e Bushmen and other groups already m entioned, but also the Inuit or 'Eskimos'
scientists have discovered simple procedures of sensory deprivation that enable research of Canada, tribes of Amazonian South America, and nom adic societies of Siberia, where
into the brain's function when it com es to 'seeing things'. The research goes on, but the term 'shaman ' originates - sham ans claim power from and over animals. The trance
already it is clear that the human ner vous system exhibits certain features of response dance of the Bushmen m ay celebrate a successful hunt, or serve to bring good for tune
that can be generalized - providing, for archaeologists, a so-called neuropsychological to an in1minent expedition; either way, then, a measure of 'hunting m agic' is implied by
m odel fo r explaining the very beginnings of symbolic representation . the sham an 's central role. F rom sham anic lore, too, it is evident that certain animals
M igraine sufferers do not need to be reminded of the fac t that, even in a completely can be invested with extraordinary power and significance. (For the Bushmen, the eland
darkened room, and with their eyes firmly shut, they are persecuted by flashing lights. has such special status.) Siberian shamans would say that their souls were entrusted
It is a common symptom of an altered state of co nsciousness: the sensation of brightness, to animal guardians, or claim some personal familiar or daem on in four-legged form .

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 THE BIRTH OF THE IMAG IN ATION

FROM A RT TO AGRI CULTURE

The cave-paintings at Altamira were once disbelieved because they seemed too 'early'.
In turn, archaeologists who accepted the earliness of such cave-paintings were faced with
a problem of succession. In Europe, at least, the practice of painting in caves apparently
came to an end about 12,000 years ago. We know that the emergence, several thousand
years later, of the great civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, was
accompanied by an increasing use of, even reliance upon, the symbolic resource of images:
this book makes further reference to that process in due course (see, for example,
page 61). But in the meantime, what happened to the human ability to create images?
Until recently, there was no satisfactory answer to that question. It was possible,
admittedly, to claim that in some parts of the world - notably Australia - the habits
of representation that commenced about 40,000 years ago never lapsed. But this was
impossible to prove. In terms of archaeologically stratified evidence, a definite gap
existed, between the end of the Old Stone Age (tl1e Palaeolithic) and the early phases
of the New Stone Age (the Neolithic). Then a certain hilltop in southern Turkey
disclosed its secret.
TheTurkish-Kurdish town ofUrfa (or Sanliurfa), near the Syrian border, is
touristically billed as 'historic'. Here Abraham, the patriarch of the second millennium BC,
venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is supposed to have sojourned on his
way from the city of Ur to the land of Canaan. But it now transpires that religious
activity around Urfa pre-dates Abraham by thousands of years.
An archaeological survey in the 1960s observed in the hills around Urfa a particular
site where several knolls of reddish earth arose from a limestone plateau. These knolls,
and the rocky area nearby, were covered in the debris of flint -knapping - the flakes
and chips of flint left by the prehistoric manufacture of tools and weapons. Some large
man-made slabs of stone were also noticed, but assumed to be of much later date than
the Neolithic debris. No further investigation was carried out until 1994, when Klaus
Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute visited the site and established that the
15 A lion-man statuette from Hohlestein-Stadel, south west Germany.
knolls were not natural, but part of an artificial hill, heaped as a prominent mark in the c.32-30,000 BC, possibly used as a pendant or an amulet.
local landscape. With experience of other sites in this ancient area of Upper Mesopotamia,
Schmidt was in1mediately able to classify the site as a tepe or mound, datable to the early
Neolithic phase before the use of ceramics (sometimes referred to as the Pre-Pottery

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 THE BIRTH O F THE IMAG INATION

Neolithic) . H e also suspected that the limestone slabs on tllis llill- henceforth known
as Gobekli Tepe - belonged to some large prehistoric structure.
Digging into the m ound not only confirmed Schmidt's intuitions, but revealed
a dimension of Pre-Pottery N eolithic that no one expected.
T he excavation s at G obekli Tepe are ongoing, with scope for m ore surprises.
What has come to light so far is a series of walled enclosures, of which about 20 are
built around massive stone pillars set in a circle (Fig. 16) . Two separate pillars occupy the
centres of these circles. Each of the pillar s is fashioned out of solid rock into aT-shap e
about 7 metres (23 feet) tall. Rectangular car ved doorways once provided marked
or tunnelled access to the enclosures, and in the fl oor of one circle a small inset basin
has been fo und, with an attached channel - p ossibly, as the excavator suggests, for the

v - :- •.._ , .~
collection of blood. F ood was consumed h ere, as indicated by many animal bones,
~ ,.. ~:.
- . ..
\
"-,· but nowhere on the hillside are there signs of domestic habitation. So this was not, it
I • . -·: ~~ .~;~~~~~ -~:-· seems, a place where p eople lived, but rather a special assembly point- some kind
~·- -·~ ' ·-t7h
.....
. ;,
-· , .. ~"'~ .... :' ':·~ ·
.,
.. ..... · .1._.:.~ . . .
of sanctuary in the m ountains that attracted people from a radius of settlements some
.... l. ~ .
.· 80 kilometres (50 nliles) or further afield .
Like other prehistoric monuments, such as Stonehenge in Britain and the menhirs
of France, G obekli Tep e retains an enigmatic sense of unfathomed ritual significance.
But not only is it much earlier than Stonehenge- by 7000 years - it is also much
different in one key respect. The well-trimmed pillars of G obekli Tepe are not just
megaliths (big stones) . They are decorated - embellished with images either engraved on
to the surface or else picked out in shallow relief (Fig. 17) .
It may come as no surprise that the principal subj ects of this decoration are, once
again, animals. Foxes and snakes dominate the repertoire, but gazelle, aurochs, wild
boar, wild ass, cranes and a lion also feature. Spiders, too, are shown. In addition one
block carries the image of a woman squatting in a sexual p osture, though this may be
of later date.
The pillars them selves appear schematically anthropom orphic or human-shaped,
the shaft standing for legs and torso, the T-bar equating to shoulder s and head. Carved
arms are added to on e of them, as if to confirm the intention. This in turn encourages the
presumption that the images serve to harness forms of wildlife whose power belongs to
16 (t op) Aerial view of a stone circl e at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey, c. 9000 BC. these pillar-figures, or perhaps protects them. The foxes bare their teeth, the tusks of the

17 (above) Animal detail- probably a fox- from GobekliTepe.

boar are pronounced, and the snakes have been identified as venom-loaded vipers.

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 T HE BIRT H OFTH E IM AG INATIO N THE BIRTH O F THE IMAG INATION

The p ossibility that the decoration of the pillars at Gobekli Tepe is shamanic has up on fanning for foo d, or the intensive exploitati on of certain livestock and cereals,
been seriou sly considered by the excavators. But, as they point out, the scale of leading to settled communities?
structural enterprise at this site points to a society in which ritual was m ediated not so In the book of Genesis, the change occurs as a direct con sequence of the expulsion
much by sham ans as by 'true priests' . The images, after all, were the ultimate phase, of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden . T he sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel,
or finishing touches at least, to what had been a m assive collective effort. At a sm all are specified as a tiller of the soil and a shepherd respectively, fulfilling God's edict that
distance away from the main 'temple' area is the natural limestone amphitheatre from m ortals should henceforth survive 'by the sweat of their brow' . G obekli Tepe raises an
which the pillars were quarried. In the upper reaches of this quarry there is a m arked alternative possibility - that what instigated the first production of foo d was art.
cavity left by the removal of one T-shaped pillar much larger than any so far brought About 30 kilom etres (20 miles) south from Gobekli Tep e lies the K aracadag range.
to light at the site; and right next to this space is a stone of similar size abandoned Research am ong these hills has shown that they are hom e to the closest wild relative of an
in a cracked and therefore unfinished state. H ad it been successfully rem oved from the early species of dom esticated grain, einkorn wheat. The suggestion is that wild grain was
bedrock, it would have m easured som e 6 m etres (20 fee t), and weighed about 50 tonnes. brought from the Karacadag, and cultivated around G bbekli Tepe in order to feed all the
To shift it across to the m ound would have required the combined traction power of hundreds of people building or simply frequenting the site.
about 500 people. So there is the m om entous conclusion: that som e 11 ,000 years ago imagery had
G iven that the m ound itself is m an-m ade, built from thousands of tonnes of earth becom e so powerful in the minds of human beings that it helped to bring about the
and rock brought up from the plain below, we are bound to speculate that the m easure of greatest transformation in human history.
human organization required to build G obekli Tepe was some way towards that required
to build the Egyptian pyramids. Gobekli Tepe, in the words of its excavators, therefore
stands at 'the dawn of a new world, a world with powerful rulers and a complex, stratified,
hierarchical society'.
So this is a major revelation from current archaeology; and unlike the first 'reveal'
of Altarnira, it causes true wonder, not disbelief. And for those who like to regard art
as an optional luxury in life, a pastime to be indulged only when the necessary business
of survival and subsistence has been completed, G obekli Tepe offer s a particular
challenge - with which we shall conclude.
For m ore than half a century, archaeologists have agreed that fa rming - the keeping
of dom esticated animals and the cultivation of crops - began in the N ear East during the
early N eolithic period, c. 9000 BC . Sheep and goats were the princip al animals featuring
in this agricultural revolution, while wheat and barley were the principal crops. Key sites
providing evidence for animal enclosures and dom esticated grains include Jarmo, in
northern Iraq; CatalhoyUk, in western Turkey; and Jericho, in Palestine. T he Jordan valley
and the reaches of Upper M esopotamia have also yielded specific clues regarding the
transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled farming. The debate then arises
about which came first: a demographic shift to settled communities, leading to a reliance

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