What does the breathtakingly beautiful art depicted on the walls of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, tell us about the nature of the ancestral mind? How did these images spring, seemingly from nowhere into the human story? The Mind in the Cave puts forward the most plausible explanation yet proposed for the origins of image-making and art. This is a masterful piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors and on the nature of our own consciousness and experience.

Vorwort
An intellectual adventure story, built around the quest to understand the nature of human consciousness and the dawning of art

Autorentext
David Lewis-Williams is Professor Emeritus and Senior Mentor in the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg. Among his books are The Mind in the Cave, Inside the Neolithic Mind (with David Pearce) and The Shamans of Prehistory (with Jean Clottes).

Zusammenfassung
The author combines a lifetime of anthropological research with the most recent neurological insights in this text. Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are interwoven with the self-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research.

Inhalt

Preface; Three Time-Bytes; 1. Discovering Human Antiquity; 2 Seeking Answers; 3. Creative Illusion; 4. The Matter of the Mind; 5. Case Study 1: Southern African San Rock Art; 6. Case Study 2: North American Rock Art; 7. An Origin of Image-Making; 8. The Cave in the Mind; 9. Cave and Community; 10. Cave and Conflict