The Mind in the Cave

By David Lewis-Williams,

Book cover of The Mind in the Cave

Book description

What does the breathtakingly beautiful art depicted on the walls of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, tell us about the nature of the ancestral mind? How did these images spring, seemingly from nowhere into the human story?

The Mind in the Cave puts forward the most plausible explanation…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Mind in the Cave as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Excellent treatment of the probable development of rock and cave art in psychological and neuropsychological terms.

There are many books on prehistoric cave paintings, but this one is an acknowledged masterpiece. For decades, the power, beauty, and intense enigma of the European cave paintings in particular have fascinated me, not least because they allow us a window into the most critical of periods of our evolution when we were anatomically and psychologically modern, yet when our cultural and social forms were newborn. I strongly believe that to complete a description of the human condition we have to get to grips with cave paintings and other forms of prehistoric art. This book presents a powerful and brilliantly…

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