Wrestling with Analogy: A Methodological Dilemma in Upper Palaeolithic Art Research.

Abstract

In 1902 Emile Cartailhac published hisMea Culpa d'un Sceptique. His acceptance of the high antiquity of prehistoric art in western Europe followed Capitan and Breuil's convincing discoveries in Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles and reflected a widespread change of opinion. Despite previous scepticism, researchers were beginning to allow that the parietal as well as the mobile art did indeed date back to the Upper Palaeolithic. But this swing in scientific opinion opened up an even more baffling problem: why did Upper Palaeolithic people make these pictures? In the year following Cartailhac's turn-about Salomon Reinach tried to answer this question by developing an analogical argument based on ethnographic parallels. He could see no other way of approaching the problem: ‘Our only hope of finding outwhythe troglodytes painted and sculpted lies in asking the same question of present-day primitives with whom the ethnography reveals connections’ (Reinach 1903, 259; my translation, his emphasis).

A Preliminary Study on English and Welsh “Sacred Sites” and Home Dream Reports

“…In addition, previous anthropological work could be adapted to this type of study. For example, Lewis-Williams (1998) proposed that some images reported from altered states of consciousness are cross-culturally similar. He has delineated three stages in the development of imagery, based on laboratory studies and experiential reports.…”

Analogical Evidence and Shamanism in Archaeological Interpretation: South African and European Palaeolithic Rock Art

“…Shamanism approached and treated social aspects and symbolic contents at the same level. Its controlled use of the ethnographic evidence (Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986, Lewis-Williams 1991 helped reveal the meaning of rock art, avoiding speculation and embedding this search for meaning in a general aim to understand its function as part of social life (Lewis-Williams 1982).…”

“…It is well known, however, that shamanism has a long history of harsh, repetitive and extensive criticisms, counter-criticisms, replies and counter-replies (see Meighan 1982, Sauvet 1989, Bahn 1993, Demoule 1997, Hamayon 1997, Beaune 1998, Solomon 1998, 2008, Vialou 1998, Taborin 2000, Francfort 2001a, 2001b, Francfort & Hamayon 2001, Le Quellec 2001, Lorblanchet 2001, Helvenston and Bahn 2004, McCall 2007; see replies in Lewis-Williams 1991, 2004a, 2004b, 2006a, 2006b, Lewis-Williams & Clottes 1998b, with the most aggressive attack unleashed by the publication of Les chamanes de la préhistoire, by Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams (Clottes & Lewis-Williams 1996). Some of the most important problems that have been pointed out in this debate refer to the speculative character of shamanism, 3 its lack of historical context, 4 its reliance on scarce ethnographic evidence and, most importantly, its lack of explanatory power (Francfort 2001a, Bahn 2001, Le Quellec 2001, McCall 2007 and lack of testability (Sauvet 1989, Bahn 1997, Francfort 2001a, 2001b.…”

“…marked rise in success would begin in the early 1970s, when an ethnographic approach, seasoned with social theory, began to be adopted and which, over the next three decades and more, produced results that constituted the foundation for new theory and method. (Lewis-Williams 2006a:369) The core of this new foundation was shamanism, presented as sound ethnographic analogical reasoning for the first time, and therefore a real improvement over the previous empiricist research (Lewis-Williams 1991, 2006a.…”

‘On the Back of a Blue Elk’: Recent Ethnohistorical Sources and ‘Ambiguous’ Stone Age Rock Art at Pyhänpää, Central Finland

“…Wylie 1985, Lewis-Williams 1998, Zvelebil & Jordan 1999, David & Kramer 2001, Cunningham 2003, Fahlander 2004). Formal analogies rely on a simple resemblance between two situations, whereas relational analogies rest on a cultural or natural connection between the two contexts.…”