Creating art, shaping the mind: a psychological approach to Upper Palaeolithic cave art
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 20/02/2021

Upper Palaeolithic cave art is enthralling and, unsurprisingly, has been subject to extensive research since its discovery. Recently, inspired by cognitive archaeological approaches, research has taken a turn towards conceptually proposing psychological foundations behind the production of cave art. In particular, Hodgson (2006; 2008; 2012; Hodgson and Pettitt 2018), has proposed that specific psychological phenomena were triggered in the highly sensory environments of caves. It is suggested this dictated the form of the art and was intimately linked to the psychological state of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. This reconceives Palaeolithic cave art as the direct product of specific psychological processes experienced by hunter-gatherers, that were influenced by their entangled, dependent relationship with the animals depicted. However, this has yet to be explored in a grounded, falsifiable way. Consequently, there is an overwhelming need to test conceptual ideas of the psychological foundations of Upper Palaeolithic cave art against the archaeological record itself. This talk will present a novel chaîne opératoire approach, that attempts to integrate the psychological phenomena triggered in caves into a cohesive framework for understanding the processes involved in cave art production. This takes an interdisciplinary approach between psychology and archaeology, through creating 3D models of cave art from northern Spain and creating virtual reality versions of the art to use in psychology experiments. Further, this talk will emphasise the importance of adopting fully-grounded, interdisciplinary approaches in cognitive archaeology, through demonstrating that this enables a shift towards fine-scale, nuanced understandings of the cognitive processes embedded in Upper Palaeolithic artistic behaviours.

Hodgson, D. (2006) ‘Altered States of Consciousness and Palaeoart: an Alternative Neurovisual Explanation.’ Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16 (1): 27 – 37.
Hodgson, D. (2008) ‘The Visual Dynamics of Upper Palaeolithic Cave Art.’ Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18 (3): 341 – 353.
Hodgson, D. (2012) ‘Emanations of the Mind: Upper Paleolithic Art as a Visual Phenomenon.’ Time and Mind 5 (2): 185 – 193.
Hodgson, D. and Pettitt, P. (2018) ‘The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art.’ Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28 (4): 591 – 612.