A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting Religion and Society Through Rock Art

by James David Lewis-Williams

J. David Lewis-Williams is world renowned for his work on the rock art of Southern Africa. In this volume, Lewis-Williams describes the key steps in his evolving journey to understand these images painted on stone. He describes the development of technical methods of interpreting rock paintings of the 1970s, shows how a growing understanding of San mythology, cosmology, and ethnography helped decode the complex paintings, and traces the development of neuropsychological models for understanding the relationship between belief systems and rock art. The author then applies his theories to the famous rock paintings of prehistoric Western Europe in an attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of rock art. For students of rock art, archaeology, ethnography, comparative religion, and art history, Lewis-Williams' book will be a provocative read and an important reference.

Genres: Prehistory, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Lewis-Williams had been interested in archaeology in his youth.[2] When interviewed on 19 February 2014 in his office at the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) at WITS, Lewis-Williams related that in the early days of apartheid, there were very few English-speaking archaeology teaching posts available. One was held by John Goodwin at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the other was held by Clarence Van Riet Lowe at WITS. These posts were in addition to several Afrikaans-speaking posts held at the University of Pretoria (UP)as well as a number of national museums. To major in archaeology was not an option for an undergraduate in South Africa at the time, and in 1952 Lewis-Williams enrolled for a BA at UCT majoring in English and Geography. After his graduation he taught English for twenty years, taking up a position at Selborne College and subsequently at Kearsney College. In the school holidays, Lewis-Williams was able to follow his passion for archaeology, organising field trips for the boys of Kearsney to explore the Drakensberg for rock art images. In 1964, while still teaching, he completed an Honours degree through the University of South Africa (UNISA) entitled Cove Rock: A study in coastal geomorphology. Several years later, Lewis-Williams met Professor John Argyle after giving a College Lecture in Pietermaritzburg. Argyle, who was professor of social anthropology at the University of Natal, suggested that Lewis-Williams do a master's degree under his supervision. Living comfortably in the grounds of Kearsney College, Lewis-Williams was not rushed to complete his master's. Eventually Argyle decided to pressure Lewis-Williams by upgrading his degree to a PhD which was finished in 1977 and published in 1981 as Believing and Seeing: Symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sort of professional memoir -- Lewis-Williams reprints and comments on articles he's published through career, from his early work cataloguing features of San rock art to the development of the idea that both San art and Stone Age cave paintings in Europe are a guide to their creators' shamanistic religion. I was more familiar with the latter, so this was an opportunity to learn in detail about the San. The book would also make a good general introduction to Lewis-Williams, though "The Mind in the Cave" and "Inside the Neolithic Mind" are also great jumping-off points.

[Annlin_the_archaeologist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the personal writting style. It reads like a lovely interview almost an autobiographical account of the authors beautiful journey into and about the motifs and images. I thoroughly enjoyed it..strongly recommended well rounded timeline of rock art interpretive studies of Southern Africa.