Cave Beneath the Sea

Cave Beneath the Sea
Author: Jean Clottes
Publisher:
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1996-03-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

An underwater cave containing Paleolithic paintings and engravings of animals, complex geomatric signs, stenciled human hands and innumerable finger tracing.

Handbook of Rock Art Research

Handbook of Rock Art Research
Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 876
Release: 2001
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780742502567

While there has always been a large public interest in ancient pictures painted or carved on stone, the archaeological study of rock art is in its infancy. But intensive amounts of research has revolutionized this field in the past decade. New methods of dating and analysis help to pinpoint the makers of these beautiful images, new interpretive models help us understand this art in relation to culture. Identification, conservation and management of rock art sites have become major issues in historical preservation worldwide. And the number of archaeologically attested sites has mushroomed. In this handbook, the leading researchers in the rock art area provide cogent, state-of-the-art summaries of the technical, interpretive, and regional advances in rock art research. The book offers a comprehensive, basic reference of current information on key topics over six continents for archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, and rock art enthusiasts.

Painted Caves

Painted Caves
Author: Andrew J. Lawson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 490
Release: 2012-05-24
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0199698228

Written from an archaeological perspective, Painted Caves is a beautifully illustrated introduction to the oldest art of Western Europe: the very ancient paintings found in caves. Lawson offers an up to date overview of the geographical distribution of the sites and their significance within the varied network of Palaeolithic art.

Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art
Author: David Lewis-Williams
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2004-04-17
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0500770441

The breathtakingly beautiful art created deep inside the caves of western Europe has the power to dazzle even the most jaded observers. Emerging from the narrow underground passages into the chambers of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira, visitors are confronted with symbols, patterns, and depictions of bison, woolly mammoths, ibexes, and other animals. Since its discovery, cave art has provoked great curiosity about why it appeared when and where it did, how it was made, and what it meant to the communities that created it. David Lewis-Williams proposes that the explanation for this lies in the evolution of the human mind. Cro-Magnons, unlike the Neanderthals, possessed a more advanced neurological makeup that enabled them to experience shamanistic trances and vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix," or paint, these images on cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged. Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven here with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aesthetic achievements.

Author:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 24
Release:
Genre:
ISBN:

Visions of War

Visions of War
Author: David D. Perlmutter
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2014-05-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1466872500

Visions of War provides a historical survey, an anatomy, an interpretation, and a polemic about the ways human beings have created pictures of battle and conflict from the Stone Age to the Gulf War. From the dawn of time to the present, from the days of mammoth hunting to the era of Scud-busting, pictures of war constitute the most persistent genre of images human beings have created. In fact, human beings are the only creatures who engage in these two activities--organized violence and the making of pictorial images--and the author shows how both art and war emerge from the same source: the hunter's eye. David D. Perlmutter's Visions of War explores and analyzes the thirteen thousand-year legacy of pictures of war from various cultures over the centuries, from the Stone Age cave paintings and monumental sculpture of the ancient Near East to the art of the classical period and the Middle Ages, from pre-contact Mesoamerican imagery to Napoleonic propaganda and totalitarian art and on to the instantaneous images of the Gulf War.

The Origins of Human Society

The Origins of Human Society
Author: Peter Bogucki
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 499
Release: 2000-01-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1557863490

The Origins of Human Society traces the development of human culture from its origins over 2 million years ago to the emergence of literate civilization. In addition to a global coverage of prehistoric life, the book pays specific attention to the origins and dispersal of anatomically-modern humans, the development of symbolic expression, the transition from mobile foraging bands to sedentary households, early agriculture and its consequences, the emergence of social differentiation and hereditary ranking, and the prehistoric roots of ancient states and empires. The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.

Notes of a Potato Watcher

Notes of a Potato Watcher
Author: James Lang
Publisher: International Potato Center
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781585441389

"Native to the New World, the potato was domesticated by Andean farmers, probably in the Lake Titicaca basin, almost as early as grain crops were cultivated in the Near East. Full of essential vitamins and energy-giving starch, the potato has proved a valuable world resource. Curious Spaniards took the potato back to Europe, from whence it spread worldwide. Today, the largest potato producer is China, with India not far behind. To tell the potato's story, Lang has done fieldwork in South America, Asia, and Africa."--Jacket.

Awakening the Planetary Mind

Awakening the Planetary Mind
Author: Barbara Hand Clow
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2011-09-21
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1591439388

Completing our conscious evolution by releasing our collective fear of catastrophes • Explains how we are on the cusp of an era of incredible creative growth • Shows how we are about to overcome the collective fear caused by ancient catastrophes as we awaken to the memories of our lost prehistory • Examines legendary cataclysms and scientific evidence of a highly advanced global culture that disappeared 11,500 years ago In this completely revised and expanded edition of Catastrophobia, bestselling author Barbara Hand Clow explains how we are on the cusp of an age of incredible creative growth made possible by restoring our lost prehistory. Examining legendary cataclysms--such as the fall of Atlantis and the biblical Flood--and the mounting geological and archaeological evidence that many of these mythic catastrophes were actual events, she reveals the existence of a highly advanced global maritime culture that disappeared amid great earth changes and rising seas 14,000 to 11,500 years ago, nearly causing our species’ extinction and leaving humanity’s collective psyche deeply scarred. Tracing humanity’s reemergence after these prehistoric catastrophes, Clow explains how these events in the deep past influence our consciousness today. Guided by Carl Johan Calleman’s analysis of the Mayan Calendar, she reveals that as the Earth’s 26,000-year precessional cycle shifts, our evolution is accelerating to prepare us for a new age of harmony and peace. She explains how we are beginning a collective healing as ancient memories of prehistory awaken in our minds and release our unprocessed fear. Passed from generation to generation, this fear has been responsible for our constant expectations of apocalypse. She shows that by remembering and moving beyond the trauma of our long lost past, we bring the era of cataclysms to an end and cross the threshold into a time of extraordinary creative activity.