Brain Disorder and Rock Art

Prompted by numerous endeavours to link a variety of brain illnesses/conditions with the introduction of palaeoart, especially rock art, the author reviews these proposals in the light of the causes of these psychiatric conditions. Several of these proposals are linked to the assumption that palaeoart was introduced through shamanism. It is demonstrated that there is no simplistic link between shamanism and brain disorders, although it is possible that some of the relevant susceptibility alleles might be involved in some shamanic experiences. Similarly, no connection between rock art and shamanism has been credibly demonstrated. Moreover, the time frame applied in all these hypotheses is fallacious for several reasons. These notions are all based on the belief that palaeoart was introduced by ‘anatomically modern humans’ and on the replacement hypothesis. Finally, the assumption that neuropathologies and shamanism preceded the advent of palaeoart is also suspect. These numerous speculations derive from neglect of the relevant empirical factors, be they archaeological or neurological.

Download Full-text

Review Feature: A review of The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. ISBN 0-500-05117-8 hardback £18.95 & US$29.95; 320 pp., 66 figs., 29 colour plates

Cambridge Archaeological Journal ◽

10.1017/s0959774303000155 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 263-279 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David Lewis-Williams ◽

E. Thomas Lawson ◽

Knut Helskog ◽

David S. Whitley ◽

Paul Mellars

Keyword(s):

Rock Art ◽

David Lewis ◽

Modern Human ◽

Hominid Evolution ◽

Modern Humans ◽

Radiocarbon Dates ◽

Anatomically Modern Humans ◽

The Mind ◽

Cave Art ◽

West European

David Lewis-Williams is well-known in rock-art circles as the author of a series of articles drawing on ethnographic material and shamanism (notably connected with the San rock art of southern Africa) to gain new insights into the Palaeolithic cave art of western Europe. Some 15 years ago, with Thomas Dowson, he proposed that Palaeolithic art owed its inspiration at least in part to trance experiences (altered states of consciousness) associated with shamanistic practices. Since that article appeared, the shamanistic hypothesis has both been widely adopted and developed in the study of different rock-art traditions, and has become the subject of lively and sometimes heated controversy. In the present volume, Lewis-Williams takes the argument further, and combines the shamanistic hypothesis with an interpretation of the development of human consciousness. He thus enters another contentious area of archaeological debate, seeking to understand west European cave art in the context of (and as a marker of) the new intellectual capacities of anatomically modern humans. Radiocarbon dates for the earliest west European cave art now place it contemporary with the demise of the Neanderthals around 30,000 years ago, and cave art, along with carved or decorated portable items, appears to announce the arrival and denote the success of modern humans in this region. Lewis-Williams argues that such cave art would have been beyond the capabilities of Neanderthals, and that this kind of artistic ability is unique to anatomically modern humans. Furthermore, he concludes that the development of the new ability cannot have been the product of hundreds of thousands of years of gradual hominid evolution, but must have arisen much more abruptly, within the novel neurological structure of anatomically modern humans. The Mind in the Cave is thus the product of two hypotheses, both of them contentious — the shamanistic interpretation of west European Upper Palaeolithic cave art, and the cognitive separation of modern humans and Neanderthals. But is it as simple as that? Was cave art the hallmark of a new cognitive ability and social consciousness that were beyond the reach of previous hominids? And is shamanism an outgrowth of the hard-wired structure of the modern human brain? We begin this Review Feature with a brief summary by David Lewis-Williams of the book's principal arguments. There follows a series of comments addressing both the meaning of the west European cave art, and its wider relevance for the understanding of the Neanderthal/modern human transition.

Download Full-text

The Human Symbolic Revolution: A Darwinian Account

Cambridge Archaeological Journal ◽

10.1017/s0959774300001190 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 75-114 ◽

Cited By ~ 97

Author(s):

Chris Knight ◽

Camilla Power ◽

Ian Watts

Keyword(s):

Present Article ◽

Art Song ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Rock Art ◽

Late Archaic ◽

Modern Humans ◽

Archaeological Evidence ◽

Darwinian Theory ◽

Anatomically Modern Humans

By 50,000 years ago, the effects of a ‘symbolic explosion’ — an efflorescence of human art, song, dance and ritual — were rippling across the globe. Applied to archaeological evidence, standard neo-Darwinian theory offers new understandings of this improbable event. The present article defines ‘symbolism’, models quasi-ritual behaviour in late archaic Homo sapiens, extends the argument to the emergence of anatomically modern humans and concludes with preliminary tests against archaeological, ethnographic and rock art data.

Download Full-text

A Morphometric Investigation into the Origin(s) of Anatomically Modern Humans

10.30861/9781841713441 ◽

2003 ◽

Author(s):

Phillip J. Habgood

Keyword(s):

Modern Humans ◽

Morphometric Investigation ◽

Anatomically Modern Humans

Download Full-text

Stochastic models support rapid peopling of Late Pleistocene Sahul

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-21551-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Corey J. A. Bradshaw ◽

Kasih Norman ◽

Sean Ulm ◽

Alan N. Williams ◽

Chris Clarkson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stochastic Models ◽

Ecological Model ◽

New Guinea ◽

Emergent Properties ◽

Modern Humans ◽

Global Migration ◽

Early Settlement ◽

Anatomically Modern Humans ◽

Settlement Event ◽

Initial Entry

AbstractThe peopling of Sahul (the combined continent of Australia and New Guinea) represents the earliest continental migration and settlement event of solely anatomically modern humans, but its patterns and ecological drivers remain largely conceptual in the current literature. We present an advanced stochastic-ecological model to test the relative support for scenarios describing where and when the first humans entered Sahul, and their most probable routes of early settlement. The model supports a dominant entry via the northwest Sahul Shelf first, potentially followed by a second entry through New Guinea, with initial entry most consistent with 50,000 or 75,000 years ago based on comparison with bias-corrected archaeological map layers. The model’s emergent properties predict that peopling of the entire continent occurred rapidly across all ecological environments within 156–208 human generations (4368–5599 years) and at a plausible rate of 0.71–0.92 km year−1. More broadly, our methods and approaches can readily inform other global migration debates, with results supporting an exit of anatomically modern humans from Africa 63,000–90,000 years ago, and the peopling of Eurasia in as little as 12,000–15,000 years via inland routes.

Download Full-text

The Use of Ochre and Painting During the Upper Paleolithic of the Swabian Jura in the Context of the Development of Ochre Use in Africa and Europe

Open Archaeology ◽

10.1515/opar-2018-0012 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 185-205 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Sibylle Wolf ◽

Nicholas J. Conard ◽

Harald Floss ◽

Rimtautas Dapschauskas ◽

Elizabeth Velliky ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Upper Paleolithic ◽

Archaeological Sites ◽

Modern Humans ◽

Anatomically Modern Humans

Abstract While the earliest evidence for ochre use is very sparse, the habitual use of ochre by hominins appeared about 140,000 years ago and accompanied them ever since. Here, we present an overview of archaeological sites in southwestern Germany, which yielded remains of ochre. We focus on the artifacts belonging exclusively to anatomically modern humans who were the inhabitants of the cave sites in the Swabian Jura during the Upper Paleolithic. The painted limestones from the Magdalenian layers of Hohle Fels Cave are a particular focus. We present these artifacts in detail and argue that they represent the beginning of a tradition of painting in Central Europe.

Download Full-text

Profiles of Executive Function Across Children with Distinct Brain Disorders: Traumatic Brain Injury, Stroke, and Brain Tumor

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617717000364 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (7) ◽

pp. 529-538 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Gabriel C. Araujo ◽

Tanya N. Antonini ◽

Vicki Anderson ◽

Kathryn A. Vannatta ◽

Christina G. Salley ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Traumatic Brain Injury ◽

Brain Tumor ◽

Executive Function ◽

Brain Injury ◽

Executive Functions ◽

Control Group ◽

Medical Illness ◽

Brain Disorders ◽

Brain Disorder ◽

Orthopedic Injury

AbstractObjectives:This study examined whether children with distinct brain disorders show different profiles of strengths and weaknesses in executive functions, and differ from children without brain disorder.Methods:Participants were children with traumatic brain injury (N=82; 8–13 years of age), arterial ischemic stroke (N=36; 6–16 years of age), and brain tumor (N=74; 9–18 years of age), each with a corresponding matched comparison group consisting of children with orthopedic injury (N=61), asthma (N=15), and classmates without medical illness (N=68), respectively. Shifting, inhibition, and working memory were assessed, respectively, using three Test of Everyday Attention: Children’s Version (TEA-Ch) subtests: Creature Counting, Walk-Don’t-Walk, and Code Transmission. Comparison groups did not differ in TEA-Ch performance and were merged into a single control group. Profile analysis was used to examine group differences in TEA-Ch subtest scaled scores after controlling for maternal education and age.Results:As a whole, children with brain disorder performed more poorly than controls on measures of executive function. Relative to controls, the three brain injury groups showed significantly different profiles of executive functions. Importantly, post hoc tests revealed that performance on TEA-Ch subtests differed among the brain disorder groups.Conclusions:Results suggest that different childhood brain disorders result in distinct patterns of executive function deficits that differ from children without brain disorder. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed. (JINS, 2017,23, 529–538)

Download Full-text

Revisiting the Out of Africa event with a novel Deep Learning approach

10.1101/2020.12.10.419069 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Francesco Montinaro ◽

Vasili Pankratov ◽

Burak Yelmen ◽

Luca Pagani ◽

Mayukh Mondal

Keyword(s):

Deep Learning ◽

Sequential Monte Carlo ◽

Whole Genome Sequence ◽

Learning Approach ◽

Whole Genome ◽

Modern Humans ◽

Anatomically Modern Humans ◽

Out Of Africa ◽

Approximate Bayesian ◽

Back To Africa

AbstractAnatomically modern humans evolved around 300 thousand years ago in Africa1. Modern humans started to appear in the fossil record outside of Africa about 100 thousand years ago though other hominins existed throughout Eurasia much earlier2–4. Recently, several researchers argued in favour of a single out of Africa event for modern humans based on whole-genome sequences analyses5–7. However, the single out of Africa model is in contrast with some of the findings from fossil records, which supports two out of Africa8,9, and uniparental data, which proposes back to Africa movement10,11. Here, we used a novel deep learning approach coupled with Approximate Bayesian Computation and Sequential Monte Carlo to revisit these hypotheses from the whole genome sequence perspective. Our results support the back to Africa model over other alternatives. We estimated that there are two successive splits between Africa and out of African populations happening around 60-80 thousand years ago and separated by 12-13 thousand years. One of the populations resulting from the more recent split has to a large extent replaced the older West African population while the other one has founded the out of Africa populations.

Download Full-text