David Lewis-Williams
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James David Lewis-Williams (born 1934) is a South African
archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
. He is best known for his research on
southern African Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition b ...
San (
Bushmen The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of any of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the Indigenous peoples of Africa, oldest surviving cultures of the region. They are thought to have diverged fro ...
)
rock art In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...
. He is the founder and previous director of the Rock Art Research Institute and is currently professor
emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...
of cognitive archaeology at the
University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...
(WITS).


Theoretical influences

Lewis-Williams was exposed to
social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...
as an undergraduate at UCT. During this time he received lectures from renowned social anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown (who started the department of social anthropology at UCT in 1920 but later returned as a visiting lecturer) and
Monica Wilson Monica Wilson, née Hunter (3 January 1908 – 26 October 1982) was a South African anthropologist, who was professor of social anthropology at the University of Cape Town. Life Monica Hunter was born to missionary parents in Lovedale in t ...
, a student of Bronislaw Malinowski. Malinowski’s ideas specifically concerning the association of ritual with social products meant that Lewis-Williams could eventually challenge the idea that San rock art was merely a narrative of everyday life. Thus, from the start of his career and in contrast to most scholars of the period, Lewis-Williams was looking at San rock art from a social anthropological perspective. Following proofs of an article by South African scholar Patricia Vinnicombe, shown to him in 1966 by Professor Ray Inskeep (then editor of the South African Archaeological Bulletin), Lewis-Williams used a quantitative method for the analysis of rock art images in the
Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Zulu language, Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho language, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, Southern Africa, Great Escarpment, which encloses the central South Africa#Geography, Sout ...
. Overall he recorded some 4000 images for his doctoral thesis research. His PhD, finished in 1977 and later published in 1981 a
and Seeing: Symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings''.
is regarded as a seminal text in rock art research globally. The quantitative method now bears little impact on the understanding of meaning behind images in San rock art. There is simply too much ambiguity in what the numerical values can be said to imply. In the early 1980s Lewis-Williams began to investigate other theoretical approaches. This was because he At that time in South Africa, during
apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English:  , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
,
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
was the 'language of liberation' and the only other social theory available. In ''The economic and social context of southern San rock art'' (1982), Lewis-Williams explored the economic position of the
shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
in San society. Using
Maurice Godelier Maurice Godelier (born February 28, 1934) is a French anthropologist who works as a Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. He is one of the most influential French anthropologists and is best known as one o ...
's ideas of symbolic work, Lewis-Williams investigated the ritual role of shamans in terms of San social structure and the context of rock art. Concerns for the other members of San society are seen in his research that draws on


Key research concepts


Ethnography

A foundation to Lewis-Williams's work has been the use of
ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
. As an undergraduate he was exposed to Isaac Schapera's ''The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa'' (1930) From the start of his professional career he drew on ethnography to address the meaning of San rock art. In 1968, he read philologist Wilhelm Bleek and his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd's ''Specimens of Bushman Folklore'', and later engaged with the manuscripts th
archive
of transcriptions of conversations with ǀXam-speaking San people from the 1870s. Although he never met her, Bleek's daughter,
Dorothea Bleek Dorothea Frances Bleek (later Dorothy F. Bleek; born 26 March 1873, Mowbray, Cape Town – died 27 June 1948, Newlands, Cape Town) was a South African-born German anthropologist and philologist known for her research on the Bushmen (the San peo ...
, held a position in social anthropology at UCT where the archival collection is housed . Other available ethnographic sources have been central in Lewis-Williams's work, particularly the accounts provided by Colonial administrator
Joseph Orpen Joseph Millerd Orpen (5 November 1828 – 17 December 1923) was an influential colonial administrator for the British empire in southern Africa, as well as a local member of the Cape Parliament and the Orange Free State, Orange Free State Volks ...
in an article published in 1874 about his conversations with a San guide named Qing, the words spoken to Marion Walsham How by the southern Sotho man called Mapote, and the Kalahari San ethnographies that developed from the work of the Marshall family and others during the 1950s and 1960s. The 'trance dance, as practised by the Juǀʼhoansi in Botswana and Namibia in the twentieth century, has been at the centre of Lewis-Williams' arguments about shamanism and altered states of consciousness as the source of the images seen in southern African rock art. However, several researchers (including the artist Pippa Skotnes, the literary scholar Michael Wessels and the archaeologist Anne Solomon) dispute Lewis-Williams's interpretation of the important ǀXam San ethnographic texts that describe dances and healing


Shamanism

Shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
, which derives from the Siberian Tungus word ''shaman'', was used by Lewis-Williams to explain the metaphor of death that he alleges is common to both ethnography and San rock art. The shamanic world often has tiered realms inhabited by spirits that can be accessed through
altered states of consciousness An altered state of consciousness (ASC), also called an altered state of mind, altered mental status (AMS) or mind alteration, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking state. It describes induced changes in one's me ...
(ASC). The world inhabited by people is supplemented by other realms that are usually conceptualised as existing above or below the inhabited world. Shamans have the ability to mediate between these other worlds. For the San, other realms were accessed during altered states of consciousness, and at rock faces where rock art can be found: More significantly, Lewis-Williams claims that the collection of San ethnography demonstrates the trance or healing dance, see San healing practices, is at the core of San belief, Metaphors for death are supposedly contained in the trance dance. As San shamans dance, their supernatural power, or ‘potency’, builds up until it reaches a breaking point and flies out of the body. At this point, they ‘die’, a metaphor for travelling to another realm where spirits dwell in the same way as the soul travels after leaving after physical death. However, there are methodological issues concerning the use of 20th century ethnographies, from peoples who did not make rock art, as analogous to interpret art elsewhere that is hundreds or even thousands of years older. Lewis-Williams argues that the trance dance correlates with symbolism in the rock art. Features depicted in images that, it is argued, relate to altered states of consciousness, include nasal bleeding and the ‘arms back’ posture. Lewis-Williams and Megan Biesele (known for her work with the Juǀʼhoan people) showed that the gap between different groups of San and different traditions of rock art could be bridged because of similar terms and concepts centred around the dance used by both the ǀXam San in the south and the Juǀʼhoansi San people in the north. Building on the work of previous scholars such as Lorna Marshall and Daniel McCall regarding a 'pan-San' belief system, Biesele and Lewis-Williams together suggested that the conceptual linguistic terms and ritual observances similar to the Juǀʼhoansi and ǀXam could be used to understand the complexity of the images. Indeed, Lewis-Williams writes that


Neuropsychology

The idea of a conceptual belief system was expanded upon using
neuropsychology Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology focus on how injuries or illnesses of the brai ...
. Together with Thomas Dowson, Lewis-Williams explored the relationship between universal neuropsychological patterns in the wiring of the human brain and practices in shamanistic societies. Using data produced from laboratory experiments with
hallucinogens Hallucinogens, also known as psychedelics, entheogens, or historically as psychotomimetics, are a large and diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mo ...
, they proposed a neuropsychological model with multiple stages of hallucinations experienced during altered states of consciousness. Simply put, the model demonstrates the relationship between altered states of consciousness and the subjective interpretation of hallucinations. The premise of the neuropsychological model is that there is a difference between cultural imagery and neurologically produced visual patterns known as entoptic phenomena. During ASCs, which can be induced in a number of ways, the first stage of
hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality. They are distinguishable from several related phenomena, such as dreaming ( REM sleep), which does not involve wakefulness; pse ...
experienced by a subject contains only entoptic phenomena, such as the
scintillating scotoma Scintillating scotoma is a common visual aura that was first described by 19th-century physician Hubert Airy (1838–1903). Originating from the brain, it may precede a migraine headache, but can also occur acephalgically (without headache), ...
experienced by
migraine Migraine (, ) is a complex neurological disorder characterized by episodes of moderate-to-severe headache, most often unilateral and generally associated with nausea, and light and sound sensitivity. Other characterizing symptoms may includ ...
sufferers. The second stage begins when the hallucinations are construed by the subject into culturally familiar content. The implication of this is that entoptic phenomena will be understood differently in different cultures. The final stage is one of deep visual and somatic hallucinations, with multiple images and sensations understood in a cultural context. Despite being able to explain why geometric and representational forms occur together in much hunter-gatherer art worldwide, and providing a 'universal' link through human neurology if cultural differences are allowed, the model has been criticised. Critics have two concerns. First, the cross-cultural extrapolation of shamanism, and second, pushing this idea far into the past. In reply, Lewis-Williams holds to the neuropsychological model but emphasises that the idea of shamanism is not a simple analogy, it requires contextual definition. Furthermore, there is a need to have the idea behind the neuropsychological model practically demonstrated in further examples than the rock art of the San, Coso people and
Upper Palaeolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...
used in ''The signs of all times: entoptic phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic art'' (1988).


Research in European caves

Lewis-Williams has studied much Upper Palaeolithic rock art in France since the 1970s. He argues that there are parallels between San rock and French Upper Palaeolithic rock art based on the neuropsychological model outlined above. In 1972, he met
André Leroi-Gourhan André Leroi-Gourhan (; ; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection. ...
(a French prehistoric archaeologist who worked on Upper Palaeolithic rock art) at a conference in Valcamonica, Italy. Leroi-Gourhan was working at
Lascaux Lascaux ( , ; , "Lascaux Cave") is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, Dordogne, Montignac, in the Departments of France, department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 Parietal art, parietal cave painting, wall paintin ...
at that time and tried to arrange for Lewis-William to view the cave sites of the
Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; ) is a large rural departments of France, department in south west France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and ...
. Unfortunately, they were unable to co-ordinate their dates and it was only much later that he visited Lascaux. With the help of scholars such as
Jean Clottes Jean Clottes is a prominent French prehistorian. He was born in the French Pyrenees in 1933"Jean Cl ...
(another French prehistoric archaeologist), he has been able to continue working with, and visiting, caves of the Franco-Cantabrian region, such as the famous Chauvet cave.


Career timeline

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Select awards and achievements

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Selected publications


Articles

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Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * *Lewis-Williams, D.J., 2004. Building an essay: a practical guide for students. New Africa Books, Cape Town. *Lewis-Williams, D.J., 2010. Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion. Thames & Hudson, London. *Lewis-Williams, J.D. 2011. A pocket guide to San rock art. Jacana, Cape Town. *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Dowson, T.A., 1992. Rock paintings of the Natal Drakensberg. Natal University Press, Pietermaritzburg. *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Clottes J., 1996. Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire: transe et magie dans les grottes ornées. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. (English Edition: 1998, German Edition 1997) *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Blundell, G., 1998. Fragile heritage: a rock art fieldguide. University of the Witwatersrand Press, Johannesburg. *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Clottes, J., 1998. The Shamans of Prehistory: trance magic and the painted caves. Abrams, New York. *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Dowson, T.A., 1999. Images of Power: understanding San rock art (Second Edition). Southern Book Publishers, Johannesburg. *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Clottes J., 2001. Les chamanes de la préhistoire: texte integral, polémique et réponses. Le Seuil, Paris. *Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Pearce, D.G., 2004. San Spirituality: Roots, Expressions and Social Consequences. Double Storey, Cape Town. * * *Lewis-Williams, D. J., 2016. Myth and Meaning: San-Bushman folklore in global context. UCT Press, Cape Town


Notes


References

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External links

* How Art Made The World * episode 1 of 3 * episode 2 of 3 * episode 3 of 3
David Lewis-Williams
interviewed by Jonathan Derbyshire about his book ''Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion; with 49 Illustrations'' on
New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis-Williams, David 1934 births Living people Fellows of the Royal Society of South Africa Recipients of the Order of the Baobab People from Cape Town South African archaeologists South African non-fiction writers South African people of Welsh descent University of Cape Town alumni University of Natal alumni Academic staff of the University of the Witwatersrand Presidents of the South African Archaeological Society