Palaeolithic Art: a humble approach.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

All,

This is about a symposium, sponsored by the John Templeton Society (mentioned elsewhere - CLICK HERE) within the framework of a program called the “Humble Approch Initiative”, and entitled “Innovations in Material and Spiritual Cultures: Exploring the Conjectured Links”.

Regardless of the actual purpose of the “Initiative” in question, the actual content of the symposium (held in les Eyzies, in May 2004) sounds rather promising, if only because of the roster of participants: Colin Renfrew (Chair), Jean Clottes, Margret W. Conkey, Francesco D'errico, Henry de Lumley-Woodyear, Merlin W. Donald, Christopher Stuart Henshilwood, David Lewis-Williams, Paul Anthony Mellars, Steven J. Mithen, Jane M. Renfrew, Paul S. C. Taçon, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, and Keith Ward.

I have written to the organizers in order to find out if, when, and how the results of this exercise will be made available. I have yet to receive an answer.

For access to the original announcement, click
HERE

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[trehinp]

Thanks Jacques,

This must have been quite an interesting symposium. Just the name of the participants make one impatient to see the results of their work.

I am however somewhat having a feeling of incompleteness (Je suis resté sur ma faim, as we say in French...). Here is why. Let me quote one of the first sentences of the symposium presentation :

<<Looking at Palaeolithic art and recognizing that it is unlikely that there is only one meaning to 25,000 years of image making, it is intriguing, nevertheless, to speculate whether these magnificent Ice Age representations of animal forms, rare human figures, and mysterious signs on cave walls may be expressions of religious feelings and notions>>

The first part of the argument sounds very promising, it is about exploring the potential meanings of Palaeolithic art in a broad way : <<it is unlikely that there is only one meaning to 25,000 years of image making>> this is a very open statement.

However the second part gets right away into religious and spiritual interpretations. Apparently no other hypothesis than spiritual was discussed...

Just one example, the art for art sake hypothesis, which had been rejected by the "authorities", could have been at least evoked. Halverson's "Art for the art's sake in the Palaeolithic", 1987 article in Current Anthropology revives this theory in a quite convincing manner, bringing fascinating arguments on the subject.

In the view of an open symposium such hypothesis could have been discussed. That doesn't mean that "art for art's sake" can explain all Palaeolithic art, exactly as the first statement quoted above was saying, but it could have been one of the possible motivations of our ancestors.

Of course I'm not so pretentious to think that my own "autistic savants" hypothesis might have been part of such a symposium. However, a variant of this hypothesis was published by Professor Nicholas Humphrey, in 1998, “Cave art, autism and the evolution of the human mind”,  Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 8, 165-191.

Stephen Mithen who was among the participant knew about that article on which he made comments. I wander if he spoke about it…

Note that in my own research, I bring something that may be quite disturbing with regard to the meaning of prehistoric art and art more generally: for autistic people, those gifted for drawing, what we call art has a completely different purpose than in the general public. Symbolism isn't at all their goal. They seem to get a satisfaction in pure creation, regardless of the reactions of the public (be it family or larger). This is a challenge for most theories of art which have the postulate that symbolism is inseparable from art.

Perhaps I should wait for a transcript of the symposium's discussions to see if the openness was there regardless of the general presentation made on the website.

Thanks again for having informed us about this Jacques. I hope you will get the information about the publication of the symposium’s proceedings.

Paul

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Thanks Jacques,

<snip>

Thanks again for having informed us about this Jacques. I hope you will get the information about the publication of the symposium’s proceedings.

Paul

Paul
Nearly three months after my query, the answer I just received, three days ago,  reads as follows:

Thank you for your interest in our symposium "Innovations in Material and Spiritual Cultures:  Exploring the Conjectured Links" in Les Eyzies.  Our manuscript is under consideration by a major British publisher.

My reaction to this rather uninformative and disappointing reply (understatement, here) was limited to *!!!!!*.

Jacques

[trehinp]

Thanks a lot Jacques.

This is often the case that proceedings are hard to be delivered...In particular for very specialized research domains...

I hope that the people you contacted will keep your addres in their files and will contact you if and when the proceedings will be published...

Yours sincerely.

Paul