AR67: 14 July 2004.
Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Sharpe. All rights reserved.
In process.

· For URAM and ESSSAT

Severines in rouffignac cave, France:

implications for paleolithic ideas of ultimate reality and meaning

(Modify this title for the paper, as it was used for the PowerPoint)

by

Kevin Sharpe

Graduate College, Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, Oxford
Oxford Institute for Science and Spirit, Oxford
Founder, Science & Spirit magazine
10 Shirelake Close, Oxford OX1 1SN, United Kingdom
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
www.ksharpe.com

and

Leslie Van Gelder

Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Oxford Institute for Science and Spirit, Oxford
10 Shirelake Close, Oxford OX1 1SN, United Kingdom
leslievg@OIScienceSpirit.com

ABSTRACT.

Non-figurative line markings (called flutings or, generically, ‘severines’) made with fingers on cave walls may show how Paleolithic people thought. Two things impede this opportunity, though: starting with assumptions as to the severines’ meaning (which blocks asking fundamental questions), and lacking an appropriate methodology. Over 30 years, we have developed methodologies and can now ask what the fluters were doing when they marked the walls, especially in Rouffignac Cave, France, where we focus our work. This allows us to critique suggestions as to Paleolithic meaning systems and to offer hypotheses for investigation.

KEY WORDS.

CONTENTS.

Error! No table of contents entries found.

Severines:

· What they are

· Establishing styles and intention

· Human search for meaning through story and writing

· What we can’t know from them

· What we can know so far from them

Severines – art – ways of making meaning – theology and implications

Storied meaning and evidence of human desire for pattern and understanding of the world