AltaMira Press
Pages: 336
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛
978-0-7591-0195-1 • Hardback • April 2002 • $142.00 • (£109.00)
978-0-7591-1671-9 • eBook • April 2002 • $45.50 • (£35.00)
J. David Lewis-Williams is Director of the Rock Art Research Institute at University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and is known internationally for his studies of South African rock art.
Part 0 Foreword by David S. Whitley
Part 2 Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 Introduction
Chapter 4 Chapter 1Historical setting
Chapter 5 Chapter 2Man must measure
Chapter 6 Chapter 3Ethnography and iconography
Chapter 7 Chapter 4Mystery wrapped in myth
Chapter 8 Chapter 5Through the veil
Chapter 9 Chapter 6A dream of eland
Chapter 10 Chapter 7Seeing and construing
Chapter 11 Chapter 8Building bridges
Chapter 12 Chapter 9Harnessing the brain
Chapter 13 Chapter 10Agency, altered consciousness and wounded men
Chapter 14 Chapter 11The social production and consumption of rock art
Part 15 References
Part 16 Index
Part 17 About the Author
The ideas of David Lewis-Williams, director of the Rock Art Research Institute at the University of Witwatersrand, have had a profound impact on rock art studies in southern Africa, and more recently, on the interpretation of Upper Paleolithic art...The book brings together the development of Lewis-Williams's thoughts about rock art, published between 1972-1997...A Cosmos in Stone is a valuable source for students of rock art...
— Lawrence H. Robbins, Michigan State University; American Antiquity, Vol. 69, No. 1, 2004
Individuals with an interest in the extensive rock art found on the Northwest Coast should consider A Cosmos in Stone indispensable.
— Amanda Adams; The Midden
This volume is a compilation of David Lewis-Williams' seminal papers. Though his data are primarily the rock art of the San (bushmen) of southern Africa and the cave art of the European Paleolithic, this book equally is about archaeological method and especially theory. Even more, it represents an intellectual achievement of the greatest historical importance. In these papers Lewis-Williams bridges the longest-lived divide in our western intellectual tradition, the opposition between science, religion and art, showing how science is necessary to understand art and religion, and how any apprehension of human social life likewise must foreground the importance of religion and art.
— David S. Whitley, author, The Art of the Shaman; editor, Archaeology of Religion series