States of Consciousness and Rock/Cave Art

I had been thinking about this issue for a long time. Ever since I learned about cave art in an introductory archaeology class, I've been a nut on the subject. My fantasy/dream was fulfilled in the summer of 1995, when I went on a tour of the Paleolithic painted caves in France. My time in Lascaux (the original, not the reproduction) was easily the most profoundly moving experience of my life. Rock art has not obsessed me in the same way, but it is something that I have been drawn to in my brief travels. While at UC Santa Barbara, I took a course in art of North American Indians. I hated the course—it was taught in the art department, and generally ignored the anthropological issues that interested me. However, that was where I first encountered the Anasazi figure, Kokopelli. I spent most of my time in class, doodling various versions of Kokopelli, in all sorts of modern-day activities (e.g., Kokopelli goes bowling). The most intriguing questions to me are the ones that have to do with the meaning and significance of cave/rock art. Why did people draw on cave walls and rock faces? What do the images mean. There have been many interpretations (and of course, no single interpretation can explain the various drawings made over time at even one site, let alone hundreds of different ones around the world) ranging from art for art's sake to hunting magic to territorial markings to visual history. It was not until fairly recently that I came across suggestions that some cave and rock art may in fact be related to depictions of altered states of consciousness. I thought that would be an interesting subject to explore in an issue of Anthropology of Consciousness. Once I had decided on the theme for the issue, I thought putting it together would be a rather easy task. I had no idea that I would he placing myself in the midst of an academic hurricane. At the center of the hurricane is David Lewis-Williams, who, along with Thomas Dowson, wrote a seminal and highly controversial article, published in Current Anthropology in 1988. In it, they present a neuropsychological model of upper Paleolithic cave art. Although I am an outsider to the field of rock art, I got the distinct impression that most people in the field either hate his work, or think he is a genius. I contacted many of the major researchers in the field, and when I told them the theme of the issue, they were either delighted to share their research, or wanted to write an article criticizing the work of Lewis-Williams. 1 was not interested in having the issue be a forum on Lewis-Williams. What I