David Lewis-Williams & David Pearce. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of Gods.

David Lewis-Williams & David Pearce. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of Gods. DAVID LEWIS-WILLIAMS & DAVID PEARCE. Inside the Neolithic Mind:Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of Gods. 320 pages, 75illustrations, 29 colour plates. 2005: London: Thames & Hudson;0-500-05138-0 hardback 18.95 [pounds sterling]. In this latest book, a sequel to The Mind in the Cave (2002), DavidLewis-Williams sets himself the challenge of explaining the changes inimagery and belief that accompanied the transition to farming in theNear East and western Europe. Teaming up with David Pearce, afellow-researcher in the Rock Art Research Institute in Witwatersrand,he seeks the foundation of those beliefs in the human experience offundamental neurological phenomena such as dreams and hypnagogia. Theauthors liken these hallucinations to those experienced in thewell-known 'three stages of trance' model, in which subjects(typically shamans) enter altered states of consciousness altered states of consciousness,n.pl the various states in which the mind can be aware but is not in its usual wakeful condition, such as during hypnosis, meditation, hall-ucination, trance, and the dream stage. See also alternative states of consciousness. throughsensory deprivation, dancing, chanting, ingesting psychotropic psychotropic/psy��cho��tro��pic/ (si?ko-tro��pik) exerting an effect on the mind; capable of modifying mental activity; said especially of drugs. psy��cho��tro��picadj. substances, or meditation. That model has been the subject ofconsiderable controversy in some quarters, and those who contest itsuniversality will probably find little to please them in the presentbook. Crucial to the authors' argument is the 'consciousnesscontract', the socially negotiated and accepted interpretation thatgives meaning to the visions or hallucinations which inspire religiousbelief. They see the concept of a three-tiered cosmos as an outcome ofthis 'contract' and cite ethnographic evidence to suggest thatsuch a three-tiered cosmos became a near-universal feature of Neolithicbelief systems. They develop their argument through two specific cases: the EarlyNeolithic communities of the Near East and the monument-buildingsocieties of Atlantic Europe. Following Jacques Cauvin, they argue thatanimal domestication domesticationProcess of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into forms more accommodating to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. was not primarily a means of producing meat but hadimportant symbolic and religious motivations. In the Atlantic province,they interpret chambered tombs such as Bryn Celli Ddu Bryn Celli Ddu is a prehistoric site on the Welsh island of Anglesey located near Llanddaniel Fab. Its name is difficult to translate directly but means either 'the mound in the dark grove' or possibly 'the mound in the grove of the deity'. , Barclodiad yGawres Barclodiad y Gawres (Welsh for apronful of the giantess) is a Neolithic burial chamber two miles north-west of Aberffraw on the island of Anglesey in North Wales, and on the Anglesey Coastal Path. and Newgrange as replicas of a tiered cosmos. The passagesleading into the tombs were routes between dimensions of the cosmos;many of the motifs of megalithic art, too, were associated with mentaltravel between cosmological realms. There is, inevitably, much to question and to applaud in a book ofthis kind. The authors have naturally been selective in the choice ofmaterial to argue their case. In the Near East, they highlight a smallnumber of sites with spectacular remains, such as Ain Ghazal Ghaz´aln. 1. A kind of Oriental lyric, and usually erotic, poetry, written in recurring rhymes. , GobekliTepe and (inevitably) Catalhoyuk. Their focus then switches abruptly towestern Europe, without any appraisal of the human and animal figurinesof the Balkan zone. Instead we are taken to an area where abstractmotifs are common in 'megalithic' art. One missed opportunityis the broader-based conclusions they might have derived from a study ofpottery motifs, for example, and even the coverage of megalithic art isnotably patchy. The material on which the authors do concentrate, in theBoyne Valley and Anglesey, is essentially part of one specificsubtradition within 'megalithic' art. There is nothing on therepresentational art of the early Breton menhirs, or on theanthropomorphic Having the characteristics of a human being. For example, an anthropomorphic robot has a head, arms and legs. figurations represented by shouldered standing stones,paired human breasts or statue-menhirs. Postglacial post��gla��cial?adj.Relating to or occurring during the time following a glacial period.postglacial?Relating to or occurring during the time following a glacial period.Adj. 1. rock art is likewiseomitted from this account. Entoptic entoptic/en��top��tic/ (en-top��tik) originating within the eye. ent��op��ticadj.Occurring or located within the eyeball.entopticoriginating within the eye. motifs may have been correctlyidentified in the Boyne Valley megalithic art and in some othercontexts, but they need to go further if they are to show that they werea typical and widespread phenomenon within the west European Neolithicas a whole. These difficulties aside, the issues that are raised in this bookare fundamental to the understanding of European early farmingsocieties. The concept of the three-tiered cosmos, which holds a centralplace in their argument, has figured prominently in archaeologicalinterpretations of rock art, monuments and landscape, especially innorth-western Europe (e.g. Helskog 1999; Bradley 2000; Scarre 2002).Entoptic and trance-induced phenomena have been invoked by others toexplain the 'megalithic' art of the Boyne Valley and elsewhere(Bradley 1989; Patton 1990; Dronfield 1995, 1996). Those elements, then,are not entirely novel, but previous studies have not sought tointegrate specific cases within a long-term diachronic di��a��chron��icadj.Of or concerned with phenomena as they change through time. dimension. Whatwas it that led Neolithic societies to behave so differently from theirforebears, when the fundamental neurological stimulus remained as it hadbeen for thousands if not tens of thousands of years? Several of the sites featured in this book do indeed share twosignificant qualities with the decorated caves that Lewis-Williamsdiscussed in his previous volume: they are enclosed spaces, and they aredecorated with representations and motifs that may be attributed tovision experiences and entoptic phenomena. What had changed with theadvent of the Neolithic was that access to spirit realms was no longerthrough caves, as it had been for the Upper Palaeolithic people ofFrance and Spain, but through structures built above ground. These'above ground' structures--whether houses ortombs--'became an acceptable way of accommodating a burgeoning newsocial and religious dispensation without jettisoning the fundamentalstructure of the cosmos.' They may have been linked with thedevelopment of a less democratic form of shamanism shamanism/sha��man��ism/ (shah��-) (sha��mah-nizm?) a traditional system, occurring in tribal societies, in which certain individuals (shamans) are believed to be gifted with access to an invisible spiritual , based on esotericknowledge controlled by a small elite. We are perilously close here to a 'megalithic priesthood'and a 'megalithic religion', and shades of Gordon Childe (andindeed Marija Gimbutas) flicker occasionally across the page. There willbe many who will reject out of hand the interpretation that is offered.How can we give substance to the idea that megalithic meg��a��lith?n.A very large stone used in various prehistoric architectures or monumental styles, notably in western Europe during the second millennium b.c. tombs reflect andconstitute 'a culturally specific expression of the neurologicallygenerated tiered cosmos'? The primacy accorded toneurologically-wired concepts, albeit heavily filtered through the'consciousness contract', may in itself cause unease. Yet wedo not need to be convinced by this book to be fascinated by the issuesit raises. By lifting their heads above the parapet, by telling us whatthe Neolithic mind might have been like, the authors have issued achallenge to all whose interest in prehistory extends beyond theparticularities of the archaeological record to the development of humanbelief. References BRADLEY, R. 1989. Deaths and entrances: a contextual analysis ofmegalithic art. Current Anthropology 30: 68-75. --2000. The Archaeology of Natural Places. London: Routledge. DRONFIELD, J. 1995. Subjective vision and the source of Irishmegalithic art. Antiquity 69: 539-49. --1996. Entering alternative realities: cognition, art andarchitecture in Irish passage-tombs. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6:37-72. HELSKOG, K. 1999. The shore connection. Cognitive landscape andcommunication with rock carvings in northernmost Europe. NorwegianArchaeological Review 32: 73-94. PATTON, M. 1990. On entoptic images in context: art, monuments andsociety in Neolithic Brittany. Current Anthropology 31: 554-58. SCARRE, C. 2002. A Pattern of Islands: the Neolithic monuments ofnorth-west Brittany. European Journal of Archaeology 5: 24-41. CHRIS SCARRE Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK