I am reminded that this is an electronic project that attempts to open new circuits between Paleolithic cave art, indigenous rock art, and urban graffiti; and to show that all these projections are from the same creative psyche.
On the surface, it looks as if Paleolithic cave art has been over millennia simplified from complex symbols into signs that point to aspects of tribal life. But this is like saying that haiku is attenuated Shakespeare. In their own way, both are complex. Actually, indigenous rock art may be more complex than its precursor, in that its signs are an index of symbolically endowed lifeways.
Alexander Marshak suggested that Paleolithic artists used animals "to explain the processes that are human, including human pregnancy and birth, dreams, trance, death, and so on." My first thought was: We were still close to when we, too, were animals, so they were still central to our imagination, and thus mythology. Don’t therianthropes prove this? Then I thought: Perhaps, instead, we used animals as stand-ins because we were just getting to know the extent of our innovative mind. If so, we were not in awe of powerful animals, but of ourselves!
With their
long marches, our ancestors colonized the planet, carrying with
them millions
of years of evolution that led to the emergence of various
cultures.
In alchemical circles, they strove to find the Philosopher's Stone;
or "magic."
"Their belts are strung with equipment like a rack of implements. The club hangs at the back like a workman's hammer. The quiver is at the left side. At the right are extra sandals, the tobacco pouch, the paint pouch, the drinking gourd, and the sack of parched corn meal. The little sack of meal constitutes the only ration for this army; unlike Napoleon's it does not travel on its stomach; it travels on magic."
