Shamans Of Prehistory

Author : Jean Clottes,David Lewis-Williams
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1998-10
Category : Art
ISBN : UOM:39015054458057

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Shamans of Prehistory by Jean Clottes,David Lewis-Williams Pdf

The universality of shamanistic power and practice among today's hunter-gatherers - along with the similarity of rock art found in varied sites around the world - has led Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams to suggest in this new book that the great art of paleolithic caves can be best understood through the lens of shamanism. Indeed, this is not a monograph on a particular site, but a general discussion of the art of painted caves and their shamanistic meaning. Through the authors' revealing words and the abundant full-color illustrations, we follow shamans into their trance states, and we watch as they carefully paint and engrave on rock surfaces the shapes of animals whose power they seek. As we learn how drawings and rituals were likely modes of shamanistic contact, we understand best the actions, accomplishments, and traces left behind by prehistoric shamans.

Author : Silvia Tomášková
Publisher : University of California Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780520275324

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Wayward Shamans by Silvia Tomášková Pdf

Wayward Shamans tells the story of an idea that humanity’s first expression of art, religion and creativity found form in the figure of a proto-priest known as a shaman. Tracing this classic category of the history of anthropology back to the emergence of the term in Siberia, the work follows the trajectory of European knowledge about the continent’s eastern frontier. The ethnographic record left by German natural historians engaged in the Russian colonial expansion project in the 18th century includes a range of shamanic practitioners, varied by gender and age. Later accounts by exiled Russian revolutionaries noted transgendered shamans. This variation vanished, however, in the translation of shamanism into archaeology theory, where a male sorcerer emerged as the key agent of prehistoric art. More recent efforts to provide a universal shamanic explanation for rock art via South Africa and neurobiology likewise gloss over historical evidence of diversity. By contrast this book argues for recognizing indeterminacy in the categories we use, and reopening them by recalling their complex history.

Author : Abrams
Publisher : Harry N. Abrams
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1998-09-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 0810927713

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Shamans of Prehistory by Abrams Pdf

The universality of shamanistic power and practice among today's hunter-gatherers - along with the similarity of rock art found in varied sites around the world - has led Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams to suggest in this new book that the great art of paleolithic caves can be best understood through the lens of shamanism. Indeed, this is not a monograph on a particular site, but a general discussion of the art of painted caves and their shamanistic meaning. Through the authors' revealing words and the abundant full-color illustrations, we follow shamans into their trance states, and we watch as they carefully paint and engrave on rock surfaces the shapes of animals whose power they seek. As we learn how drawings and rituals were likely modes of shamanistic contact, we understand best the actions, accomplishments, and traces left behind by prehistoric shamans.

Author : Mike Williams
Publisher : The History Press
Page : 505 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2011-11-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780752476346

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Prehistoric Belief by Mike Williams Pdf

Unlike modern people, those in prehistory were adept at entering trance; what we now call shamanism. This gave access to alternative realms where people met and befriended entities that they thought of as spirits. To the people of the past, the otherworld of trance, and the spirits that resided there, were as real to them as anything else they encountered. Until recently, this otherworldly realm was closed to archaeology; there was no way to reconstruct ancient thought. This changed with the advent of modernneurology. For the first time we can now enter the minds of those who lived thousands of years ago and begin to unravel their lives: the world as they would have believed it to be. In this bold and groundbreaking book, Dr Williams tackles all the big subjects in archaeology: the spread of humans from Africa, the rise of social groups, the adoption of agriculture, the construction of monuments, the emergence of metal, and the fall of the Celtic tribes. Showing that belief was central to these epic changes, as well as influencing the most mundane, everyday task, a new understanding of our prehistoric past emerges. Whilst being extensively researched, a fast-paced and engaging narrative makes this a page-turning read. Evocative vignettes supplement the text and take readers back in time to experience for themselves the sights, smells, and sounds of the past. This is a new way to approach prehistory, putting people and the beliefs that they held centre stage. For without understanding people's beliefs, we will never comprehend their world. Mike Williams has an MA and PhD from the University of Reading and is a shamanic practitioner and teacher, having studied with indigenous shamanic teachers in Siberia and Lapland. He has written many academic and popular articles and is the author of: Follow the Shaman's Call: An Ancient Path for Modern Lives, which was published by Llewellyn Worldwide in January 2010. He lives in a secluded valley in Wales with his wife and various animals

Author : Jean Clottes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Art, Prehistoric
ISBN : OCLC:1069432802

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The Shamans of Prehistory by Jean Clottes Pdf

Author : James L. Pearson
Publisher : Rowman Altamira
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Art
ISBN : 0759101566

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Shamanism and the Ancient Mind by James L. Pearson Pdf

A study of archaeological evidence for Shamanism in North America and how it links to the archaeology of the mind. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Author : William F. Romain
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : History
ISBN : 0759119058

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Shamans of the Lost World by William F. Romain Pdf

Shamans of the Lost World bridges the gap between recent work in the cognitive sciences and some of humankind's oldest religious expressions. In this detailed look at the prehistoric shamanism of the Ohio Hopewell, Romain uses cognitive science, archaeology, and ethnology to propose that the shamanic world view results from psychological mechanisms that have a basis in our cognitive evolutionary development. The discussions in this volume of the most current theories concerning how early peoples came to believe in spirits and gods, as well as how those theories help account for what we find in the archaeological record of the Hopewell, are of interest to archaeologists and cognitive scientists alike.

Author : Brian Hayden
Publisher : Smithsonian Institution
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2018-12-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781588344496

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Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints by Brian Hayden Pdf

Historians of art or religion and mythologists, such as Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade, have written extensively on prehistoric religion, but no one before has offered a comprehensive and uniquely archaeological perspective on the subject. Hayden opens his book with an examination of the difference between traditional religions, which are passed on through generations orally or experientially, and more modern “book” religions, which are based on some form of scripture that describes supernatural beings and a moral code, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He attempts to answer the question of why religion developed at all, arguing that basic religious behaviors of the past and present have been shaped by our innate emotional makeup, specifically our ability to enter into ecstatic states through a variety of techniques and to create binding relationships with other people, institutions, or ideals associated with those states.

Author : Robert J. Wallis
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0415302021

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Shamans/neo-Shamans by Robert J. Wallis Pdf

Robert J. Wallis explores the interface between the 'new' and prehistoric shamans of popular culture and anthropology, drawing on interviews with a variety of practitioners, particularly contemporary pagans in Britain and north America.

Author : Dragoş Gheorghiu,Herman Bender,Emilia Pásztor,George Nash
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2018-04-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781527509559

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Archaeological Approaches to Shamanism by Dragoş Gheorghiu,Herman Bender,Emilia Pásztor,George Nash Pdf

This long awaited book discusses both ancient and modern shamanism, demonstrating its longevity and spatial distribution. The book is divided into eleven thought-provoking chapters that are organised into three sections: mind-body, nature, and culture. It discusses the clear associations with this sometimes little-understood ritualised practice, and asks what shamanism is and if tangible evidence can be extracted from a largely fragmentary archaeological record. The book offers a novel portrayal of the material culture of shamanism by collating carefully selected studies by specialists from three different continents, promoting a series of new perspectives on this idiosyncratic and sometimes intangible phenomenon.

Author : Dragos Gheorghiu,George Nash,Herman Bender,Emília Pásztor
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : BODY, MIND & SPIRIT
ISBN : 1785709577

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Lands of the Shamans by Dragos Gheorghiu,George Nash,Herman Bender,Emília Pásztor Pdf

'Shamanism' is a term with specific anthropological roots, but which is used more generally to cover a set of interactions between a practitioner or 'shaman' and a spiritual or religious realm beyond the reach of most members of the community. It has often been considered from an anthropological viewpoint, but this book gathers the most recent studies on a subject which has not been comprehensively studied by archaeologists. By putting together experts from two continents who have studied the phenomenon of shamanism, Lands of the Shamans through carefully selected case studies uses the archaeological evidence to construct the shamans' worldview, landscape and cosmology. Recent interdisciplinary studies support the idea of the existence of shamanistic representations as long ago as the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic, but at the same time, do not follow developments during the history of humankind. As ethnographic evidence shows, shamanistic activity represents a complex phenomenon that is extremely diversified, its spiritual activity possessing a large variety of expressions in the material culture. In other words, shamanism could be defined as a series of differing spiritual world views which model the material culture and the landscape. Throughout the archaeological record of all prehistoric and historic periods, there is a series of visual representations and objects and landscape alterations that could be ascribed to these differing world views, many thought to represent shamanistic cognition and activity. The shaman's landscape reveals itself to the world as one of multifaceted spiritual and material activity. Consequently, this first book dedicated completely to the shamanistic landscape presents in fresh perspective the landscapes of the lower and upper worlds as well as their phenomenological experience. Case studies come from Europe, North America and Asia.

Author : James L. Pearson
Publisher : Rowman Altamira
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2002-02-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780759116740

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Shamanism and the Ancient Mind by James L. Pearson Pdf

Pearson brings a cogent, well-argued case for the understanding of much prehistoric art as shamanistic practice. Using the theoretical premises of cognitive archaeology and a careful examination of rock art worldwide, Pearson is able to dismiss other theories of why ancient peoples produced art_totemism, art-for-art's sake, structuralism, hunting magic. Then examining both ethnographic and neuropsychological evidence, he makes a strong case for the use of shamanistic ritual and hallucinogenic substances as the genesis of much prehistoric art. Bolstered with examples from contemporary cultures and archaeological sites around the world, Pearson's thesis should be of interest not only to archaeologists, but art historians, psychologists, cultural anthropologist, and the general public.

Author : Neil Price
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2003-12-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781134527694

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The Archaeology of Shamanism by Neil Price Pdf

In this timely collection, Neil Price provides a general introduction to the archaeology of shamanism by bringing together recent archaeological thought on the subject. Blending theoretical discussion with detailed case studies, the issues addressed include shamanic material culture, responses to dying and the dead, shamanic soundscapes, the use of ritual architecture and shamanism in the context of other belief systems such as totemism. Following an intial orientation reviewing shamanism as an anthropological construct, the volume focuses on the Northern hemisphere with case studies from Greenland to Nepal, Siberia to Kazakhstan. The papers span a chronological range from Upper Palaeolithic to the present and explore such cross-cutting themes as gender and the body, identity, landscape, architecture, as well as shamanic interpretations of rock art and shamanism in the heritage and cultural identity of indigenous peoples. The volume also addresses the interpretation of shamanic beliefs in terms of cognitive neuroscience and the modern public perception of prehistoric shamanism.

Author : Graham Harvey,Robert J. Wallis
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2015-12-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781442257986

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Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey,Robert J. Wallis Pdf

A remarkable array of people have been called shamans, while the phenomena identified as shamanism continues to proliferate. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Shamanism contains with examples from antiquity up to today, and from Siberia (where the term “shaman” originated) to Amazonia, South Africa, Chicago and many other places. Many claims about shamans and shamanism are contentious and all are worthy of discussion. In the most widespread understandings, terms seem to refer particularly to people who alter states of consciousness or enter trances in order to seek knowledge and help from powerful other-than-human persons, perhaps “spirits”. But this says only a little about the artists, community leaders, spiritual healers or hucksters, travelers in alternative realities and so on to which the label “shaman” has been applied. This second edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and extensive bibliography. The dictionary contains over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on individuals, groups, practices and cultures that have been called “shamanic”. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Shamanism.

Author : Robert Michael Place,Rosemary Guiley
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Shamanism
ISBN : 9781438118314

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Shamanism by Robert Michael Place,Rosemary Guiley Pdf

Defines the practise of shamanism, recounts its role in religion and culture throughout history, and its influence today.