Rock Art Research

Sometimes the narrative behind visual imagery is lost because there is no one who remembers it but the imagery remains, silent, an enigmatic testament to past lives. Sometimes however the story survives, the imagery assisting in the process of passing the narrative down the generations, perhaps changing in some aspects but retaining its essence. This paper is about narrative and about language itself. How words first became symbolic for objects and how awareness developed of self as separate from others. It is also a story about an evolving understanding of how modern human brains have adapted and put to new use pathways already existing in the primate brain.