Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T21:24:56.516Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2018

Derek Hodgson
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK Email: dehogson@gmail.com
Paul Pettitt
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK Email: paul.pettitt@durham.ac.uk

Abstract

Archaeologists have struggled for more than a century to explain why the first representational art of the Upper Palaeolithic arose and the reason for its precocious naturalism. Thanks to new data from various sites across Europe and further afield, as well as crucial insights from visual science, we may now be on the brink of bringing some clarity to this issue. In this paper, we assert that the main precursors of the first figurative art consisted of hand prints/stencils (among the Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens) and a corpus of geometric marks as well as a hunting lifestyle and highly charged visual system for detecting animals in evocative environments. Unlike many foregoing arguments, the present one is falsifiable in that five critical, but verifiable, points are delineated.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcock, J., 1998. Animal Behaviour—An evolutionary approach. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates.Google Scholar
Alpert, B.O., 2009. The Creative Ice Age Brain. New York (NY): Nyehaus/Foundation 20 21.Google Scholar
Alpert, B.O., 2012. Niaux Cave: theatre of illusions. L'Anthropologie 116, 680–93.Google Scholar
Altman, M.N., Khislavsky, A.L., Coverdale, M.E., Gilger, J.W., 2016. Adaptive attention: how preference for animacy impacts change detection. Evolution and Human Behaviour 37, 303–14.Google Scholar
Appleton, J. 1975. The Experience of Landscape. Chichester: John Wiley & Son.Google Scholar
Arias, P. & Ontañón, R., 2012. La Garma (Spain): long term human activity in a karst system, in Caves in Context. The cultural significance of caves and rock shelters in Europe, eds. Bergsvik, K.A. & Skeates, R.. Oxford: Oxbow, 101–17.Google Scholar
Arkles, J. 2013. Leon Battista Alberti, On Sculpture. A practical translation (trans. Arkles, Jason). Lulu self-publishing. https://www.lulu.com/Google Scholar
Asari, T., Konishi, S., K., Jimura, Chikazoe, J., Nakamura, N. & Miyashita, Y., 2010. Amygdalar modulation of frontotemporal connectivity during the inkblot test. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 182, 103–10.Google Scholar
Aubert, M., Brumm, A., Ramli, M., et al., 2014. Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi Indonesia. Nature, 223–7.Google Scholar
Avital, T., 1998. Footprints literacy: the origins of art and prelude to science. Symmetry: art and science. Quarterly of the International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry 9 (1), 346.Google Scholar
Avital, T., 2001. The origins of art: an archaeological or a philosophical problem? South African Journal of Art History 16, 3467.Google Scholar
Bahn, P., 1986. No sex please, we're Aurignacians. Rock Art Research 3 (2), 99120.Google Scholar
Bahn, P., 2016. Images of the Ice Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barham, L.S., 2002. Systematic pigment use in the Middle Pleistocene of South-Central Africa. Current Anthropology 43 (1), 181–90.Google Scholar
Barrière, C., 1976. L'art pariétal de la Grotte de Gargas/Palaeolithic Art in the Grotte de Gargas. (Mémoires de l'Institut d'Art Préhistorique de Toulouse III/BAR International series S14.) Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1986. RAR debates. Parietal finger markings in Europe and Australia: further comments. Rock Art Research 3, 159–70.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R., 2003a. A figurine from the African Acheulian. Current Anthropology 44 (3), 405–13.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 2003b. The earliest evidence of palaeoart. Rock Art Research 20, 89135.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 2013. Megafauna depictions in Australian rock art. Rock Art Research 30 (2), 197215.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 2016. Rock art and pareidolia. Rock Art Research 33 (2), 167–81.Google Scholar
Breuil, H., 1906. L'art à ses débuts. L'enfant. Le primitif. Revue Philosophique 7, 161–78.Google Scholar
Breuil, H. 1952. Quatre cents siècles d'art parietal. Montignac: Centre d’études et de documentation.Google Scholar
Broglio, A., De Stefani, M., Gurioli, F., Pallecchi, P., Giachi, G., Higham, T. & Brock, F., 2009. L'art aurignacien dans la décoration de la Grotte de Fumane. L'Anthropologie 113, 753–61.Google Scholar
Brot, J. 2010. L'utilisation des reliefs naturels dans l'art pariétal paléolithique, in Pleistocene Art of the World. Actes du Congres IFRAO, Tarascon sur Ariège, 36–37, 7591. http://blogs.univ-tlse2.fr/palethnologie/wp-content/files/2013/fr-FR/version-longue/articles/EUR07_Brot.pdfGoogle Scholar
Bourrillon, R., White, R., Tartar, E., et al., 2017. A new Aurignacian engraving from Abri Blanchard, France: implications for understanding Aurignacian graphic expression in Western and Central Europe. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.09.063Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1977. Aspects of the chronology and schematization of two prehistoric sites on the Arnhem Land Plateau, in Form in Indigenous Art: Schematization in the art of Aboriginal Australia and prehistoric Europe, ed. Ucko, P.J.. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 243–59.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1984a. From Palaeoart to Casual Paintings: The chronological sequence of Arnhem Land plateau rock art. (Monograph 1.) Darwin: Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1984b. Rock Art of the Arnhem Land Plateau: Paintings of the Dynamic Figure style. Darwin: Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1993a. Journey in Time. Sydney: Reed Books.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1993b. You gotta have style, in Rock Art Studies: The post-stylistic era, or where do we go from here? eds. Lorblanchet, M. & Bahn, P.G.. Oxford: Oxbow, 7798.Google Scholar
Cheyne, J.A., 1993. Signs of consciousness: speculation on the psychology of Palaeolithic graphics (Part II). http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/signcon2.htmlGoogle Scholar
Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C., 2000. The many ways of dating Arnhem Land rock-art, north Australia, in The Archaeology of Rock Art, eds. Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 90111.Google Scholar
Clottes, J., 2000. The ‘three ‘Cs’: fresh avenues towards European Palaeolithic art, in The Archaeology of Rock Art, eds. Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P.S.C.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112–29.Google Scholar
Clottes, J., Courtin, J. & Vanrell, L., 2005. Images préhistoriques et ‘médecines’ sour la mer [Prehistoric images and medicines under the sea]. International Newsletter on Rock Art (42), 18.Google Scholar
Clottes, J., Courtin, J. & Vanrell, L., 2015. Cosquer redécouvert. Paris: Le Seuil.Google Scholar
Conard, N., 2003. Palaeolithic ivory sculptures from southwestern Germany and the origins of figurative art. Nature (426), 830–32.Google Scholar
Conard, N.J., 2009. A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany. Nature 459, 248–52.Google Scholar
Conard, N.J. & Kieselbach, P., 2006. A phallus-shaped stone tool from Gravettian deposits at the Hohle Fels cave and the interpretation of Paleolithic sexual imagery. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 36 (4), 455–72.Google Scholar
d'Errico, F. & Nowell, A., 2000. A new look at the Berekhat Ram figurine: implications for the origins of symbolism. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10 (1), 123–67.Google Scholar
Davis, W., 1986. The origins of image making. Current Anthropology 27 (3), 193215.Google Scholar
Davis, W., 1987. Replication and depiction in palaeolithic art. Representation 19, 109–44.Google Scholar
Davis, W., 2010. Replications: Archaeology, art history, psychoanalysis. University Park (PA): Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Delorme, A., Richard, G. & Fabre-Thorpe, M., 2010. Key visual features for rapid categorization of animals in natural scenes. Frontiers of Psychology 1 (21), 113.Google Scholar
Dobrez, L., 2010–11. What representations tell us about the way we see. Purakala 20–21, 2333.Google Scholar
Dobrez, L. & Dobrez, P., 2013. Rock art animals in profile: visual recognition and the principles of canonical form. Rock Art Research 30 (1), 7590.Google Scholar
Dobrez, P. 2013. The case for hand stencils and prints as proprio-performative. MDPI Arts 2 (4), 273327.Google Scholar
Dobrez, P. 2017. From tracks to gesture-derived inscription: an Australian genealogy for ‘tracks and lines’ petroglyphs. Rock Art Research 34 (2), 149–68.Google Scholar
Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Bush, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U. & May, A., 2004. Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature 427 (6972), 311–12.Google Scholar
Dutkiewicz, E., 2015. The Vogelherd Cave and the discovery of the earliest art – history, critics and new questions, in Human Origin Sites and the World Heritage Convention in Eurasia, ed. Nuria, S.. Paris: UNESCO, 7491.Google Scholar
Eagle, M., Wolitzki, D.L. & Klein, G.S., 1966. Imagery: effect of a concealed figure in a stimulus. Science 151 (3712), 837–9.Google Scholar
Edensor, T. 2013. Reconnecting with darkness: gloomy landscapes, lightless places. Social & Cultural Geography 14 (4), 446–65.Google Scholar
Ego, R., 2016. The gesture of sight. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.08.001Google Scholar
Fernandes, A.B., Reis, M., Remirez, C.E. & Marcos, C.V., 2017. Integration of natural stone features and conservation of the Upper Palaeolithic Côa Valley and Siega Verde open-air rock-art. Time and Mind 10 (3), 293319.Google Scholar
Floss, H., 2017. Same as it ever was? The Aurignacian of the Swabian Jura and the origins of Palaeolithic art. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.12.044Google Scholar
Foucher, P., San Juan-Foucher, C. & Rumeau, Y., 2007. La grotte de Gargas. Un siècle de découvertes. Saint-Laurent-de-Neste: Édition Communautés de Communes du Canton de Saint-Laurent-de-Neste.Google Scholar
Fritz, C., 1999. Towards the reconstruction of Magdalenian artistic techniques: the contribution of microscopic analysis of mobiliary art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9 (2), 189208.Google Scholar
Fritz, C. & Tosello, G., 2000. Observations on the techniques in the horse panel at the Chauvet Cave (Ardèche). Example of the rhinoceroses confronting each other. International Newsletter on Rock Art 26, 23–9.Google Scholar
Fritz, C. & Tosello, G., 2015. From gesture to myth: artists’ techniques on the walls of Chauvet Cave, in Aurignacian Genius: Art, technology and society of the first modern humans in Europe, eds. White, R. & Bourrillon, R. with Bon, F.. (Proceedings of the International Symposium, April 8–10 2013, New York University.) P@lethnology 7, 280314.Google Scholar
Galinier, J., Becquelin, A.M., Bordin, G., et al., 2010. Anthropology of the night: cross-disciplinary investigations. Current Anthropology 51 (6), 819–47.Google Scholar
García-Diez, M., Garrido, D., Hoffmann, D.L., Pettitt, P., Pike, A. & Zilhão, J., 2015. The chronology of hand stencils in European Palaeolithic rock art: implications of new U-series results from El Castillo Cave (Cantabria, Spain). Journal of Anthropological Sciences 95, 118.Google Scholar
García-Diez, M., Hoffmann, D., Zilhão, J., de las Heras, C., Lasheras, J.A., Montes, R. & Pike, A., 2013. Uranium-series dating reveals a long sequence of rock art at Altamira Cave (Santillana del Mar, Cantabria). Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (11), 4098–106.Google Scholar
Giromini, L., Porcelli, P., Viglione, D.J., Parolin, L. & Pineda, J.A., 2010. The feeling of movement: EEG evidence for mirroring activity during the observations of static, ambiguous stimuli in the Rorschach cards. Biological Psychology 85 (20), 233–41.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E.H., 1960. Art and Illusion. London: Phaidon.Google Scholar
Groenen, M. 2000. Sombra y Luz en el Arte Paleolitico. Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar
Halverson, J., 1992a. The first pictures: perceptual foundations of Palaeolithic art. Perception 1, 389404.Google Scholar
Halverson, J., 1992b. Paleolithic art and cognition. Journal of Psychology 126 (3), 221–36.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C.S., d'Errico, F. & Watts, I., 2009. Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 57 (1), 2747.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2000a. Art, perception and information processing: an evolutionary perspective. Rock Art Research 17 (1), 334.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2000b. Shamanism, phosphenes, and early art: an alternative synthesis. Current Anthropology 41 (5), 866–73.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2003a. Seeing the ‘unseen’: fragmented cues and the implicit in Palaeolithic art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13 (1), 97106.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2003b. The biological foundations of Upper Palaeolithic art: stimulus, percept and representational imperatives. Rock Art Research 20 (1), 322.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2006a. Altered states of consciousness and palaeoart: an alternative neurovisual explanation. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16 (1), 2737.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2006b. Tracings of the mind: the role of hallucinations, pseudohallucinations and visual imagery in Franco-Cantabrian cave art. Anthroglobe. http://www.anthroglobe.info/docs/hodgsond_pseudohall_061204.htmlGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, D. 2008. The visual dynamics of Upper Palaeolithic art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18 (3), 341–53.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. 2011. The first appearance of symmetry in the human lineage: where perception meets art. Symmetry 3 (1), 3753.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2013a. The visual brain, perception, and depiction of animals in rock art. The Journal of Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/342801Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2013b. Ambiguity, perception, and the first representations, in Origins of Pictures (Papers from the Chemnitz Conference, Germany, 2010), eds. Sachs-Hombach, K. & Schirra, J.R.J.. Cologne: Halem, 401–23.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. & Helvenston, P.A., 2006a. The emergence of the representation of animals in palaeoart: insights from evolution and the cognitive, limbic and visual systems of the human brain. Rock Art Research 23 (1), 340.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. & Helvenston, P.A., 2006b. Further thoughts on comments by Chippindale and a reply to Taçon. Rock Art Research 2 (2), 249–55.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. & Watson, B., 2015. The visual brain and the early depiction of animals in Europe and Southeast Asia. World Archaeology 47 (5), 776–91.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, D.L., Angelucci, D.E., Villaverde, V., Zapata, J. & Zilhão, J., 2018b. Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals 115,000 years ago. Science Advances 4 (2): eaar5255.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, D., Pike, A., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P. & Zilhão, J., 2016. Methods for U-series dating of CaCO3 crusts associated with Palaeolithic cave art and application to Iberian sites. Quaternary Geochronology 36, 104–19.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, D.L., Standish, C.D., García-Diez, M., et al., 2018a. U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. Science 359 (6378), 912–15.Google Scholar
Hudson, S.C., 1998. The hunter's eye: visual perception and Palaeolithic art. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 15 (1), 95109.Google Scholar
Kennedy, J.M. & Silver, J., 1974. The surrogate functions of lines in visual perception: evidence from antipodal rock and cave artwork sources. Perception 3, 313–22.Google Scholar
Keyser, J.D. & Poetschat, G., 2004. The canvas as the art: landscape analysis of the rock-art panel, in The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art: Looking at pictures in place, eds. Chippindale, C. & Nash, G.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 118–30.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, M. & Ichikawa, M., 2016. Emotions evoked by viewing pictures may affect temporal aspects of visual processing. Japanese Psychological Research 58 (3), 273–83.Google Scholar
Kosslyn, S.M. & Shin, L.M., 1994. Visual mental images in the brain: current issues, in The Neuropsychology of High Level Vision. Collected tutorial essays, eds. Farah, M.J. & Ratcliff, G.. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 269–96.Google Scholar
Kull, K., 2011. The architect of biosemiotics: Thomas A. Sebeok and biology, in Semiotics Continues To Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and the doctrine of signs, eds. Cobley, P., Deely, J., Kull, K. & Petrilli, S.. Berlin: De Grutyer Mouton, 233–50.Google Scholar
Lane, R.D., Chua, P.M-L. & Dola, R.J., 1999. Common effects of emotional valence, arousal and attention on neural activation during visual processing of pictures. Neuropsychologia 37, 989–97.Google Scholar
Laursen, B., 1993. Paleolithic cave paintings, mental imagery and depiction: a critique of John Halverson's article ‘Paleolithic Art and Cognition’. Aarhus: Aarhus University. Venus Report, 19. forskning.ruc.dk/site/files/57418134/Paleolit-artikel.pdfGoogle Scholar
Lenson-Erz, T., 2013. The Dark Ages of picturing: does art originate from caves? A synopsis, in Origins of Pictures (Papers from the Chemnitz conference, Germany (2010), eds. Sachs-Hombach, K. & Schirra, J.R.J.. Cologne: Halem, 250–69.Google Scholar
Liu, J., Li, J., Feng, L., Li, L., Tian, J. & Lee, K.. 2014. Seeing Jesus in toast: neural and behavioral correlates of face pareidolia. Cortex 53, 6077.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M., 2007. The origin of art. Diogenes 214, 98109.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M., 2010. Art pariétal: grottes ornées du Quercy. Arles: Rouergue.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M. & Bahn, P., 2017. The First Artists: In search of the world's oldest art. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Lucquet, G.H., 1930. The Art and Religion of Fossil Man. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ludmer, R., Dudai, Y. & Rubin, N., 2011. Uncovering camouflage: amygdala activation predicts long-term memory of induced perceptual insight. Neuron 69, 1002–14.Google Scholar
Malotki, E., 2013. The road to iconicity in the Paleoart of the American West, in Origins of Pictures: Anthropological discourses in image science, eds. Sachs-Hombach, K. & Schirra, J.R.J.. Cologne: Halem, 201–29.Google Scholar
Marchant, J., 2016. A journey to the oldest cave paintings in the world. Smithsonian Magazine. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journey-oldest-cave-paintings-world-180957685/Google Scholar
Marquet, J.C. & Lorblanchet, M., in press. Nouvelle datation du ‘masque’ de La Roche-Cotard (Langeais, Indre-et-Loire). Paleo.Google Scholar
Mijović, B., De Vosa, M., Vanderperrena, K., Machilsenc, B., Sunaerte, S., Van Huffela, S. & Wageman, J., 2014. The dynamics of contour integration: a simultaneous EEG–fMRI study. NeuroImage 88, 1021.Google Scholar
Ogawa, M., 2005. Integration in Franco-Cantabrian parietal art: a case study of Font-de-Gaume Cave, France, in Aesthetics and Rock Art, eds. Heyd, T. & Clegg, J.. Aldershot: Ashgate, 117–29.Google Scholar
Ogawa, M., 2012. Power of seeing: high quality and diversity of parietal art in Chauvet, in Pleistocene Art of the World. ed. Clottes, J.. Actes du Congrès IFRAO, Tarascon-sur-Ariège, septembre 2010 – Symposium ‘Art pléistocène en Europe’. http://blogs.univ-tlse2.fr/palethnologie/wp-content/files/2013/fr-FR/version-longue/articles/EUR28_Ogawa.pdfGoogle Scholar
Pastoors, A., Lenssen-Erz, T., Ciquae, T., et al., 2015. Tracking in caves: experience based reading of Pleistocene human footprints in French caves. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25 (3), 551–64.Google Scholar
Pastoors, A. & Weniger, G.C., 2011. Cave art in context: methods for the analysis of the spatial organization of cave sites. Journal of Archaeological Research 19 (4), 377400.Google Scholar
Perky, C.W., 1910. An experimental study of imagination. American Journal of Psychology 21, 422–52.Google Scholar
Petchkovsky, L., 2008. Some preliminary reflections on the biological substrate of meaning making, in The Uses of Subjective Experience, eds. Dowd, A., San Roque, C. & Petchkovsky, L.. (Proceedings of the Conference ‘The Uses of Subjective Experience: A Weekend of Conversations between ANZSJA Analysts and Academics who Work with Jung's Ideas’, October 20–21, 2007.) Sydney: Australian & New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts, 243–52.Google Scholar
Pettitt, P., 2011. The living as symbols, the dead as symbols: problematising the scale and pace of hominin symbolic evolution, in Homo Symbolicus: The dawn of language, imagination and spirituality, eds. Henshilwood, C. & d'Errico, F.. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 141–62.Google Scholar
Pettitt, P., 2016. Darkness visible. Shadows, art and the ritual experience of caves in Upper Palaeolithic Europe, in The Archaeology of Darkness, eds. Dowd, M. & Hensey, R.. Oxford: Oxbow, 1123.Google Scholar
Pettitt, P., Arias, P., García-Diez, M., et al., 2015. Are hand stencils in European cave art older than we think? An evaluation of the existing data and their potential implications, in Prehistoric Art as Prehistoric Culture: Studies in honour of Professor Rodrigo de Balbín-Behrmann, eds. Bueno-Ramírez, P. & Bahn, P.G.. Oxford: Archaeopress, 3143.Google Scholar
Pettitt, P.B. & Bahn, P., 2015. An alternative chronology for the art of Chauvet Cave. Antiquity 89, 542–53.Google Scholar
Pettitt, P., Castillejo, A.M., Arias, P., Ontanon Peredo, R. & Harrison, R., 2014. New views on old hands: the context of stencils in El Castillo and La Garma caves (Cantabria, Spain). Antiquity 88, 4763.Google Scholar
Pettitt, P., Sakamoto, T. & Lelushko, S., 2017. Light, human evolution, and the Palaeolithic, in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Light, eds. Papadopoulos, G.. & Moyes, H.. (Oxford Handbooks Online.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198788218.013.1Google Scholar
Pigeaud, R., Bouchard, M. & Laval, E., 2004. La Grotte ornée Mayenne-Sciences (Thorigné-en-Charnie, Mayenne): une exemple d'art parietal d’époque Gravettienne en France septentrionale. Gallia Préhistoire 46, 1154.Google Scholar
Pike, A.W.G., Hoffmann, D.L., García-Diez, M., et al., 2012. U-series dating of Paleolithic art in 11 caves in Spain. Science 1409–13.Google Scholar
Pike, A.W.G., Hoffmann, D.L., Pettitt, P.B., García-Diez, M. & Zilhão, J., 2017. Dating Palaeolithic cave art: why U-Th is the way to go. Quaternary International 432, 41–9.Google Scholar
Pruvost, M., Bellone, R., Benecke, N., et al., 2011. Genotypes of predomestic horses match phenotypes painted in Paleolithic works of cave art. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 108 (46), 18626–30.Google Scholar
Quiles, A., Valladas, H., Geneste, J.-M., et al., 2014. Second radiocarbon intercomparison program for the Chauvet Pont-d'Arc cave, Ardèche, France. Radiocarbon 56 (2), 833–50.Google Scholar
Reeves, A., 1982. Letter to the editors. Vision Research 22, 711.Google Scholar
Riekki, T., Lindeman, M., Aleneff, M., Halme, A. & Nuortim, A., 2013. Paranormal and religious believers are more prone to illusory face perception than skeptics and non-believers. Applied Cognitive Psychology 27, 150–55.Google Scholar
Roebroeks, W., Sier, M.J., Kellberg Nielsen, T., de Loecker, D., Parés, J.M., Arps, C.E.S.. & Mücher, H.J., 2012. Use of red ochre by early Neanderthals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 109 (6), 1889–94.Google Scholar
Rorschach, H., 1942 Psychodiagnostics—A diagnostic test based on perception (4th edn). Berne: Hubert.Google Scholar
Sauvet, G., 2004. L'art mobilier non classique de la Grotte magdalénienne de Bédeilhac (Ariège), in L'art du paléolithique supérieur, eds. Lejeune, M & Welte, A.C.. (Actes des colloques 8.2 et 8.3, XIVe Congrès de l'UISPP, Liège, 2–8 Septembre 2001/Eraul 107.) Liège: PUL, 167–76.Google Scholar
Schnepel, B. & Ben-Ari, E., 2005. ‘When darkness comes…’: steps toward an anthropology of the night. Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 5, 153–63.Google Scholar
Sebeok, T.A. 1995. Indexicality, in Peirce and Contemporary Thought: Philosophical inquiries, ed. Ketner, K.L.. New York (NY): Fordham University Press, 222–42.Google Scholar
Segal, S.J. & Fusella, V., 1970. Influence of imagined pictures and sounds on detection of visual and auditory signals. Journal of Experimental Psychology 83, 458–64.Google Scholar
Sunday, M. & Gauthier, I., 2017. The neural underpinnings of perceptual expertise, in The Science of Expertise: Behavioral, neural, and genetic approaches to complex skill, eds. Hambrick, D.Z., Campitelli, G. & Macnamara, B.N.. London: Routledge, 200217.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C. & Chippindale, C., 1994. Australia's ancient warriors: changing depictions of fighting in the rock art of Arnhem Land, NT. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4, 211–48.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C., Gang, L., Decong, Y., et al., 2010. Naturalism, nature and questions of style in Jinsha River rock art, northwest Yunnan, China. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20 (1), 6786.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C., Tan, N.H., O'Connor, S., et al., 2014. The global implications of the early surviving rock art of greater Southeast Asia. Antiquity 88, 1050–64.Google Scholar
Van de Cruys, S., Evers, K., Van der Hallen, R., Van Eylen, L., Boets, B., de-Wit, L. & Wagemans, J., 2014. Precise minds in uncertain worlds: predictive coding in autism. Psychological Review 121 (4), 649–75.Google Scholar
Vanhaeren, M., d'Errico, F., van Niekerk, K.L., Henshilwood, C.S. & Erasmus, R.M., 2013. Thinking strings: additional evidence for personal ornament use in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 64 (1), 500517.Google Scholar
Veth, P., Myers, C., Heaney, P. & Ouzman, S., 2017. Plants before farming: the deep history of plant-use and representation in the rock art of Australia's Kimberley region. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.08.036Google Scholar
Vyshedskiy, A., 2014. On the Origin of the Human Mind (2nd edn). MobileReference. http://mobilereference.com/mind/online/index.htmGoogle Scholar
Walther, D.B., Chai, B., Caddigan, E., Beck, D.M. & Fei-Fei, L., 2011. Simple line drawings suffice for functional MRI decoding of natural scene categories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108 (23), 9661–6.Google Scholar
Watts, I., 2009. Red ochre, body painting and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre, in The Cradle of Language, eds. Botha, R. & Knight, C.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 6292.Google Scholar
White, R., Bourrillon, R., Mensan, R., et al., 2017. Newly discovered Aurignacian engraved blocks from Abri Cellier: history, context and dating. Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.02.001Google Scholar
Windmann, S., Wehrmann, M., Calabrese, P. & Güntürkün, O., 2006. Role of the prefrontal cortex in attentional control over bistable vision. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18 (3), 456–71.Google Scholar
Wollheim, R., 1980. Art and Its Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar