AR93. 19 September 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Kevin Sharpe and Leslie Van Gelder. All rights reserved.
Submitted for publication.
A Counterexample to the Shamanic Hypothesis regarding Prehistoric Rock Art
by
Kevin Sharpe
Graduate College, Union Institute & University,
P.O. Box 111, Glenorchy 9350,
ksharpe@ksharpe.com
www.ksharpe.com
and
Leslie Van Gelder
College of Education, Walden University,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
P.O. Box 111, Glenorchy 9350, New Zealand
leslievg@ksharpe.com
ABSTRACT.
The Lewis-Williams hypothesis on the shamanic origin of
prehistoric art, extrapolating from the San art in southern
KEYWORDS.
David Lewis-Williams, finger flutings, phosphene
hypothesis, rock art,
CONTENTS.
The
Shamanic Hypothesis and Flutings
The
Phosphene Hypothesis and Flutings
Introduction
The Lewis-Williams hypothesis of the shamanic origin of
prehistoric art (Lewis-Williams 2002a-b; Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988) –
extrapolating from the San art in southern
With this in mind, this contribution to the discussion will focus on finger flutings (the lines that human fingers leave when drawn over a soft surface) from the Upper Paleolithic. Most Paleolithic flutings are not obvious figures or symbols but just lines, and occur in caves in southern Australia, New Guinea, and southwestern Europe. This contribution derives in particular from research on the 150 square meters of the fluted Desbordes Panel on the ceiling of the Chamber A1of Rouffignac Cave in the Dordogne, France, where the fluters included young children aged 2 to 5 (Sharpe, Lacombe, and Fawbert 2002; Sharpe and Van Gelder 2004; 2005; 2006a-d; In Press) (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. A portion
of the Desbordes Panel, Alcove I, in Chamber A1,
The Shamanic Hypothesis and Flutings
Lewis-Williams addresses flutings with the following:
Upper Paleolithic evidence suggests that parts of the caves, especially the deep passages and small, hidden diverticules, were places where visionary quests took place….In their various stages of altered states, questers sought, by sight and touch, in the folds and cracks of the rock face visions of powerful animals. It is as if the rock were a membrane between them and one of the lowest levels of the tiered cosmos; behind the rock lay a realm inhabited by spirit-animals, and the passages and chambers of the cave penetrated deep into that realm.
Such beliefs and rituals also account for…the various ways in which the walls of numerous Upper Paleolithic caverns were touched and otherwise treated. In some sites,…finger-flutings cover most of the walls and parts of the ceilings to a considerable height….If we allow that Upper Paleolithic people believed that the spirit world lay behind the thin, membranous walls of the underground chambers and passages, the evidence for this and much otherwise incomprehensible behavior can be understood….In a variety of ways, people touched, respected, painted, and otherwise ritually treated the cave walls because of what existed behind their surfaces. The walls are not a meaningless support. They were part of the images, a highly charged context (2002a: 208-209).
This hypothesis can be explored for observable consequences. For flutings, the above quotation might suggest that:
(1) Fingers would go into the walls trying to get as far as possible through the membrane toward the sacred, because the fluters wanted to touch or pass through the membrane. However, in the Desbordes Panel, one of the most extensive and impressive sites of flutings so far found anywhere, no finger holes (trying to get as far as possible into the surface) have been observed.
(2) Conceivably, fluters might remove some of the surface of the cave wall because they closely associated it with the sacred and thus wanted to house it specially or use it as body decoration perhaps to associate the wearer with the sacred.There is no evidence on the Desbordes Panel, however, that the fluters gouged out the surface as in extraction. Fluting is an inefficient way to obtain quantities of the fluted medium.
(3) The fluter shamans would favor low places with closed-in ceilings (as Lewis-Williams writes in the first paragraph of the above quote). However, from this perspective the most inviting portions would be small alcoves at the lower end of Chamber A1. These are not touched as evidenced by the lack of flutings and undisturbed clay deposits on the floor.
(4) Based on forensic evidence, young children aged 2 to 5 were most likely among the fluters in the Desbordes Panel (assuming Lewis-Williams thinks that all cave ‘art’ was done by shamans and not necessarily by others from the same culture as the shamans to whom he refers). Lewis-Williams does not describe any instances of young child shamans in the cultures he studied; these fluters were probably not shamans.
(5) What evidence besides fluting would suggest the context of shaman ritual? Lewis-Williams (2002a: 253) describes the insertion of bone fragments into cracks in the walls as an example of the desire to touch or penetrate the membrane between the human and spirit worlds. No such objects have been observed on the Desbordes Panel.
With reference to these and flutings in other chambers of Rouffignac Cave:
(6) In Lewis-Williams’ model, the fluters would feel little concern about the visual effect or form of the fluting they used because the action of touching was what was essential to them. Some of the fluters showed considerable concern with the form of fluting they used, however (four essential forms have been isolated; Sharpe and Van Gelder In Press). Some panels in Rouffignac even show ordering and structure. For instance, several clusters of flutings in Chamber E comprise 7 or 14 separated lines some of which people have retraced individually (yet unpublished data). In other words, though apparently simple, fluting is a complex activity with many variables, some consistent within a panel but others differing from panel to panel. Lewis-Williams could understand this collection of artifacts as different ritual treatments – all using fluting – of the cave walls, but there comes a point where this blanket statement wears thin and a more complex understanding is required that accounts for the consistencies and the differences.
(7) More generally, if the trances of the shamans in the cave were held in the dark, it would be very difficult for them then to create fire to see so they could flute the ceiling (or draw animals). It would also be extremely difficult to navigate out of the Chamber A1 in the dark. Lewis-Williams’ studies were of rock shelters as opposed to caves where this set of issues would not have arisen.
The shamanic hypothesis is thus probably incorrect in what it says about flutings and does not apply to them – at least not to those comprising the Desbordes Panel. Layton (2000: 184) writes: ‘The Shamanistic hypothesis is a voracious beast which can all too easily devour the world’s hunter-gatherer rock art.’ Fortunately, the shamanic idea does not generalize to all prehistoric ‘art.’ Its proponents have to provide and support a means of discriminating between those sites to which it applies and those to which it does not.
The Phosphene Hypothesis and Flutings
The shamanic hypothesis derives in part from people’s experiences of phosphenes (or entopic shapes) (Bednarik 1984; 1986; Bednarik, Lewis-Williams, and Dowson 1990; Hodgson 2000; Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988), and the applicability of this idea to the Desbordes Panel faces several difficulties parallel to those for the shamanic theory. Several phosophene forms (as depicted in Lewis-Williams and Dowson’s (1988) chart of phosphenes) can be found fluted on the Desbordes Panel (circles; grids; parallel straight, curved, and undulating lines). However, many shapes here are not in the Lewis-Williams and Dowson chart (e.g., 2+2 flutings (see Sharpe and Van Gelder 2006b for a definition); heart-shaped parallel lines; meters-long parallel lines with a bend; shapes like the second supposed ‘anthropomorph’ (Sharpe and Van Gelder 2006d)). Furthermore, many of the shapes in the chart and its examples are not in the Desbordes Panel (arcs; arrows; branchings; claviforms; dashes; dots; lines radiating from one point; spirals; triangles). Consideration of a modern mundane setting highlights the force of this argument. Many characters on a U.S. English computer keyboard are phosphene forms (e.g., #, //, O, U, >>), many are not (e.g., Y, B, %, &, @), and many shapes in the phosphene chart and its examples are not on the keyboard. If the Desbordes Panel fluters’ intention was to depict phosphenes, then the same logic implies incorrectly that the intention behind writing the words on this page is also to depict phosphenes.
The phosphene explanation for the flutings in the Desbordes Subchamber should come, not only from the shapes pictured, but even more so from the flutings’ social and psychological contexts. Probably very little or no evidence exists in the subchamber, however, for a context that can reasonably be considered phosphene related (Sharpe and Van Gelder 2006d). This explanation should thus be put on hold for lack of convincing evidence. As with the shamanic theory, it is too broad and too inclusive to offer an adequate explanation. Better criteria are still needed for deciding when its application is or is not appropriate.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the many people who have helped support this research: Jean, Marie-Odile, and Frédéric Plassard, for discussions, their support, and permission to work in Rouffignac Cave; Séverine Desbordes, Frédéric Goursolle, and Frédéric Plassard for discussions and guiding us in the cave; Union Institute & University, for financial support through its faculty research grants; and Robert Bednarik, Jean Clottes, Francesco d’Errico, Sandor Gallus*, Michel Lorblanchet, Alexander Marshack*, and Hallam Movius Jr.*, for discussions and support over many years (* now deceased).
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