Rock Art Research
BODY AND EMBODIMENT: A SENSIBLE APPROACH TO ROCK ART
Abstract
The scientific view is that consciousness, or the ability to construct mental images, arose out of an evolutionary process of selection, but there is no agreement as to whether the emergence of consciousness is related to primordial emotions or to primordial motor systems, or to a combination thereof. The article explores the hypothesis that rock art, the oldest archaeologically detectable externalisations of conscious behaviour, is indicative of the complimentarity of the emotional and sensory motor faculties in human cognitive development. To show this, the gustatory aspects of rock art are highlighted, pointing to the relationship between emotion (hunger), aesthetics and biology. Then the somaesthetic considerations that are relevant to the artistic conception of an idea and its graphic realisation are discussed, stressing the significance of kinaesthesia. This hypothesis regarding somaestesis implies an understanding of rock art beyond visual presentation and may contribute to Bednarik’s ‘neurological bridge’ for the study of pre-Historic art.
Anzieu, D. 1986. The skin ego. Translated from French by C. Turner. Yale University Press, New Haven, and London.
Arnheim, R. 1974. Art and visual perception. A psychology of the creative eye (The New Version). University of California Press, Berkeley; Los Angeles; London.
Arnold, P. J. 1979. Meaning in movement, sport and physical education. Heinemann, London.
Bahn, P. and J. Vertut 1988. Images of the Ice Age. FactsOn-File, New York and Oxford.
Bednarik, R. G. 1985. Parietal finger markings in Australia. Bollettino del Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici 22: 83–88.
Bednarik, R. G. 1986. Parietal finger markings in Europe and Australia. Rock Art Research 3: 30–61, 159–170.
Bednarik, R. G. 1990. On the cognitive development of hominids. Man and Environment 15(2): 1–7. Also at http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cognit/shared_files/hominidcognition.pdf
Bednarik, R. G. 1994. A taphonomy of palaeoart. Antiquity (68): 68–74.
Bednarik, R. G. 2002a. Crisis in Palaeolithic art studies. http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/epistem/web/crisis.html
Bednarik, R. G. 2002b. Rock art, taphonomy and epistemology. http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/epistem/web/index.html
Bednarik, R. G. 2003a. On the cognitive development of hominids. mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cognit/shared_files/homi
nidcognition.pdf
Bednarik, R. G. 2003b. The earliest evidence of palaeoart. Rock Art Research 20: 89–135.
Bednarik, R. G., G. D. Aslin and E. Bednarik 2003. The cave petroglyphs of Australia. Cave Art Research 3: 1–7.
Benthien, C. 2002. Skin: on the cultural border between self and the world. Translated from German by T. Dunlap. Columbia University Press, New York.
Berenson, B. 1948. Aesthetics and the history of the visual arts. Pantheon Books, New York.
Bradshaw, J. 2000. Though art’s hid causes are not found. http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/cognit/web/hodgson.html
Burckhardt, T. 1990. An introduction to Sufism. The mystical dimension of Islam. Translated by D. M. Matheson. Crucible,
Kent, England.
Connor, S. 2004. The book of skin. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Denton, D. 2005. The primordial emotions: the dawning of conscious. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Deregowski, J. B. 1984. Distortion in art: the eye and the mind. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London; Boston; Melbourne
and Henley.
Dickinson, J. 1976. Proprioceptive control of human movement. Princeton Book Company, Princeton, NJ.
Edelman, G. M. 2003. Naturalizing consciousness: a theoretical framework. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences 100(9): 5520-5524. Also at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100/9/5520
Edelman, G. M. and G. Tononi 2000. A universe of consciousness: how matter becomes imagination. Basic Books, New York.
Freeman, A. 2003. Consciousness: a guide to debates. ABCCLIO, Santa Barbara, California.
Gombrich, E. H., 1989. Art and illusion. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
Guthrie, R. D. 2005. The nature of Palaeolithic art. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Hachid, M. 1999. Le Tassili des Ajjers. Edif2000, Paris.
Hallier, U. W. and B. C. Hallier 2002. New paintings in the central Tassili (south Algeria). Sahara 13: 121–127.
Harvey, E. (ed.) 2003. Sensible flesh: on touch in early modern culture. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
Heller, A. M. and S. Ballesteros 2006. Introduction: approaches to touch and blindness. In M. A. Heller and
S. Ballesteros (eds), Touch and blindness: psychology and neuroscience, pp. 1–21. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey and London.
Hodgson, D. 2000. Art, perception and information processing: an evolutionary perspective. Rock Art Research 17: 3–34.
Hodgson, D. 2003. The biological foundations of Upper Palaeolithic art: stimulus, percept and representational imperatives. Rock Art Research 20: 3–22.
Hodgson, D. and P. A. Helvenston 2006. The emergence of the representation of animals in palaeoart: insight from evolution and the cognitive, limbic and visual system of the human brain. Rock Art Research 21: 3–40.
Hopkins, R. 2000. Touching pictures. British Journal of Aesthetics 40(1): 149–167.
Hopkins, R. 2004. Painting, sculpture, sight, and touch. British Journal of Aesthetics 44(2): 149–166.
Kennedy, M. 1982. Haptic picture. In W. Schiff and E. Foulke (eds), Tactual perception: a sourcebook, pp. 305–333. Cambridge University Press, New York and London.
Kennedy, J. M., P. Gabias and A. Nicholls 1991. Tactile pictures. In M. A. Heller and W. Schiff (eds), The psychology
of touch, pp. 263–299. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey; Hove and London.
Kennedy, J. M. and I. Juricevic 2006. Form, projection and spatial pictures for the blind. In M. A. Heller and S. Ballesteros (eds), Touch and blindness: psychology and neuroscience, pp. 73–93. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey and London.
Klatzky, R. L. and S. J. Lederman 1993. Spatial and nonspatial avenues to object recognition by human haptic system. In N. Eilan, R. McCarty and B. Brewer (eds), Spatial representation: problems in philosophy and psychology, pp. 191–205. Blackwell, Oxford, Köln, Museum der Stadt 1978. Sahara. 10.000 Jahre zwischen
Weide und Wüste. Handbuch zu einer Ausstellung des Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museums für Völkerkunde in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte der Universität zu Köln und dem Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn.
Krueger, L. E. 1982. Tactual perception in historical perspective: David Katz’ world of touch. In W. Schiff, E. Foulke (eds), Tactual perception: a sourcebook, pp. 1–45. Cambridge University Press, London; New York.
Lajoux, J.-D. 1977. Tassili n’Ajjer. Edition du Chêne, Paris
Llinás, R. 2001. I of the vortex: from neutron to self. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Lopes, D. M. M. 2002. Vision, touch, and the value of pictures. British Journal of Aesthetics 42(2): 191–201.
Martin, M. 1993. Sense modalities and special properties. In N. Eilan, R. McCarty and B. Brewer (eds), Spatial representation: problems in philosophy and psychology, pp. 206–218. Blackwell, Oxford, Massironi, M. 2002. The psychology of graphic images; seeing, drawing, communicating. Translated by N. Bruno. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey and London.
Merlau-Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of perception. Translated from the French by C. Smith. Routledge, London;
New York.
Millar, S, 1991. A reversed lag in the recognition and production of tactual drawings: theoretical implications for haptic coding. In M. A. Heller and W. Schiff (eds),
The psychology of touch, pp. 301–325. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey and London.
Millar, S. 2006. Processing spatial information from touch and movement: implications from and for neuroscience.
In M. A. Heller and S. Ballesteros (eds), Touch and blindness: psychology and neuroscience, pp. 25–48. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey and London.
Monod, T. 1999. Sahara art rupestre. Les Éditions de l’Amateur, Paris.
Montagu, A. 1971. Touching: the human significance of the skin. Columbia University Press, New York and London.
Montelle, Y.-P. 2007. Naturalised epistemology, human models of reality, salience and cave iconography. Rock Art Research 24: 35–45.
Muzzolini, A. 1995. Les images rupestres du Sahara. Toulouse, France.
Ouzman, S. 2001. Seeing is deceiving: rock art and the nonvisual. World Archaeology 33(2): 237–256
Panskepp, J. 1998. Affective neuroscience. The foundation of human and animal emotions. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Quine, W. V. 1973. The roots of reference. Open Court, La Salle, Illinois.
Quine, W. V. 1988. Three intermediacies. In R. B. Barrett and R. F. Gibson (eds), Perspective on Quine, pp. 1–16. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Robles-De-La-Torre, G. 2006. The importance of the sense of touch in virtual and real environments. IEEE Multimedia 13(3): pp. 24–30. Also at http://www.roblesdelatorre.com/gabriel/GR-IEEE-MM-2006.pdf
Schiff, W. 1982. A user’s view of tangible graphics: the Louisville Workshop. In W. Schiff, E. Foulke (eds), Tactual perception: a sourcebook, pp. 430–453. Cambridge University Press, London; New York.
Sommer, E. 2002. Tafassasset: Regentier und Zauberbilder. Cargo, Schwülper.
White, R. 2003. Prehistoric art. The symbolic journey of humankind. Harry N. Abrams, New York.
Wilson, F. R. 1998. The hand: how its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. Pantheon Books, New York.
Zammito J. H. 2004. A nice derangement of epistemes. Postpositivism in the study of science from Quine to Latour. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Zeman, A. 2002. Consciousness: a user’s guide. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Zika, F. 2005. Tactile relief: reconsidering medium and modality specifity. British Journal of Aesthetics 45(4): 426–437.