Highly recommended book on the "origins of art"

[Venusian Broon]

I bought this book a good 18 months or so, but I am now working through the reading pile so I picked it up this week and just finished it today.

I am sure @Stephen Palmer made a post recommending this at about that time...but I can't find it on the forums now.

It is The Mind in the Cave by David Lewis-Williams and it puts forward a hypothesis for the origins of the ancient cave painting in Western Europe, i.e. Lascaux.

Sometimes this type of book I find a little too 'academically' dry and stuffed with huge numbers of facts and observations, but this was streamlined, cogently argued and quite compelling. One must always be careful of jumping onto bandwagons, especially of new ideas just read, but I found this an enticing analysis.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Yes, this is a fantastic book, as is the follow-up The Neolithic Mind.
It's on my blog's "inspirational reads" list (link below)

here.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Yes, this is a fantastic book, as is the follow-up The Neolithic Mind.
It's on my blog's "inspirational reads" list (link below)

here.

By coincidence I also have The Neolithic Mind in my to read pile.

I say coincidence, because it is only now that I realise it is partially written by the same author!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

You might also like the outstanding 'The Prehistory Of The Mind' by Steven Mithen.