LEWIS-WILLIAMS, J(ames) David 1934-

PERSONAL: Born August 5, 1934, in Cape Town, South Africa. Education: University of Cape Town, B.A., 1955, S.T.D., 1956; University of South Africa, B.A. (with honors), 1964; University of Natal, Ph.D., 1978.

ADDRESSES: Home—P.O. Box 1892, Rivonia 2128, South Africa. Offıce—Department of Archaeology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.

CAREER: Archeologist. Teacher of English at secondary school, East London, South Africa, 1958-63; head of English department at secondary school, Botha's Hill, South Africa, 1964-78; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, lecturer, 1978-80, senior lecturer, 1981-84, reader in cognitive archaeology, 1984-87, professor of cognitive archaeology, 1987-c. 2000, director of the Rock Art Institute, professor emeritus.

MEMBER: South African Archaeological Society (president).

WRITINGS:

Believing and Seeing: Symbolic Meanings in SouthernSan Rock Paintings, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1981.

The Rock Art of Southern Africa, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

(Editor) New Approaches to Southern African RockArt, South African Archaeological Society (Cape Town, South Africa), 1983.

(With Thomas A. Dowson) Images of Power: Understanding Southern African Rock Art, Southern Book Publishers (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1989.

Discovering Southern African Rock Art, David Philip (Cape Town, South Africa), 1990.

Bushmen: A Changing Way of Life, photographs by Anthony Bannister, Struik (Cape Town, South Africa), 1991.

(With Thomas A. Dowson) Rock Paintings of the NatalDrakensberg, University of Natal Press (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa), 1992.

(Editor, with Thomas A. Dowson) Contested Images:Diversity in Southern African Rock Art Research, Witwatersrand University Press, 1994.

(With Jean Clottes) Les chamanes de la préhistoire: transe et magie dans les grottes ornées, Seuil (Paris, France), 1996, translation by Sophie Hawkes published as The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Geoffrey Blundell) Fragile Heritage: A RockArt Fieldguide, Witwatersrand University Press (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1998.

(Editor and author of introduction) Stories That Float from Afar: Ancestral Folklore of the San of Southern Africa, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 2000.

The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, Thames & Hudson (New York, NY), 2002.

A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting Religion and Society through Rock Art, AltaMira Press (Walnut Creek, CA), 2002.

Images of Mystery: Rock Art of the Drakensberg, Double Storey (Cape Town, South Africa), 2003.

(With D. G. Pearce) San Spirituality: Roots, Expression, and Social Consequences, AltaMira Press (Walnut Creek, CA), 2004.

Contributor to professional publications, including Current Anthropology, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, and L'Anthropologie.

SIDELIGHTS: J. David Lewis-Williams is a retired professor of archeology who has had a lifelong interest in the rock drawings of the San people, or Bushmen, of southern Africa. He is also editor of Stories That Float from Afar: Ancestral Folklore of the San of Southern Africa. This volume collects stories that were discovered and interpreted through the ancestors of the artists by German linguist Wilhelm Heinrich Emmanuel Bleek. In 1870, he first turned to San Bushman Kabbo, who was incarcerated in Breakwater Prison, a shaman who then became Bleek's teacher. When Bleek died, his sister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd, continued his work of collecting oral histories and stories, myths and folklore, saving them from extinction in a collection that grew to twelve thousand pages, and which won the UNESCO Memory of the World Program award, the most prestigious honor any historical document or collection can receive.

Lewis-Williams began to study the collection at the University of Cape Town and found that nothing from it had been published in decades, nor had anyone continued the work. Consequently, Stories That Float from Afar respects Kabbo's wish that the record of his people be protected, and provides the details of life that might have otherwise been lost.

Lewis-Williams wrote Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves with Jean Clottes, an expert on the prehistoric paintings in the caves of France and Spain, to produce a study in which they conclude that the cave art of Europe is shamanistic. They explain shamanism and how rituals common to the neurological patterns of all animals can lead to hallucinations and out-of-body experiences. Library Journal's Mary Morgan Smith said that "the bulk of the book is both fascinating and thought-provoking."

Lancet reviewer Kelly Morris wrote that "the result is not a scientific monograph, but a luxurious art book filled with fascinating and well-referenced narrative. . . . Coupled with striking color photographs and diagrams of prehistoric art, the authors' theory is wholly convincing. . . . Their theory appeals, not merely because of the evidence from the San but also because some aspects of the shamanic cosmos still persist in today's modern religions. And if true, these ideas have lasted for 10,000 years, perhaps since the people of that region became recognizably human."

The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art also studies the caves of Western Europe, but here Lewis-Williams uses more scholarly methodology and research in developing his premise that rock drawings created from 10,000 to 45,000 years ago were produced by hunter-gatherer shamans of the Upper Paleolithic period who wanted to document on the cave walls the states they had experienced. Lewis-Williams develops two hypotheses, that man had to have reached a state of "fully modern consciousness," or the ability to process mental images, in order to engage in image-making, and that cave painting was tied to religious beliefs and helped enforce class distinctions within society. In the first two-thirds of the book, he strengthens his case with recent findings in the physical and social sciences. In the final third, he interprets geometric and animal imagery found in a number of caves. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that Lewis-Williams "is particularly winning as he subtly reveals his devotion to the art and people he attempts to explain" and sensitively writes of "those who 'saw real things, real spirit animals and beings, real transformations' on cave walls."

Antiquity's Robert Layton wrote that The Mind in the Cave "presents a readable account of arguments that Lewis-Williams has steadfastly advocated for some years, and adds a new theory about the origin of rock art in Western Europe. The book provides a clear discussion of method."

A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting Religion and Society through Rock Art consists of one new chapter and previously published articles. Lewis-Williams first explains South African rock art of the San through documented sources, including the work of Bleek and Lloyd. "Subsequently," noted Lawrence H. Robbins in American Antiquity, "Lewis-Williams takes us from the ethnographic data on a substantial theoretical leap into neuropsychology where the stages of hallucination are described, beginning with 'entopic phenomena' (wavy lines, grids, etc.) and eventually reaching a deep state of trance where a vortex or tunnel and associated images are seen. . . . He also discusses the role of agency as well as vision quests in interpreting Upper Paleolithic cave art."

Lewis-Williams once told CA: "My interest in archaeology dates back to my undergraduate days, with rock art always being a special interest. Since then I have conducted intensive field research in a number of areas in southern Africa and have studied San beliefs and rituals. It now seems clear that rock art was closely associated with the symbols, power, and hallucinations of San medicine men, or shamans, who entered trances to control game, cure the sick, and make rain. I'm glad to say the work has been well received, though much remains to be done. We are only beginning to understand the complexities of this breathtaking art."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Arts, January, 1991, Merrick Posnansky, review of Images of Power: Understanding Southern African Rock Art, p. 91; winter, 1996, Lawrence H. Robbins, review of Contested Images: Diversity in Southern African Rock Art Research, p. 98.

American Antiquity, April, 1992, Zenon Pohorecky, review of Images of Power, p. 380; June, 2003, Robert Layton, review of The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, p. 422; January, 2004, Lawrence H. Robbins, review of A Cosmos in Stone: Interpreting Religion and Society through Rock Art, p. 157.

Booklist, January 1, 1999, Donna Seaman, review of The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves, p. 816; October 15, 2002, Donna Seaman, review of The Mind in the Cave, p. 375.

Lancet, January 30, 1999, Kelly Morris, review of TheShamans of Prehistory, p. 417.

Library Journal, February 1, 1999, Mary Morgan, review of The Shamans of Prehistory, p. 82; November 15, 2002, Anne Marie Lane, review of The Mind in the Cave, p. 68.

New Scientist, November 2, 2002, Mike Pitts, review of The Mind in the Cave, p. 57.

Publishers Weekly, November 18, 2002, review of TheMind in the Cave, p. 55.

Times Higher Education Supplement, April 11, 2003, Seven Mithen, review of The Mind in the Cave, p. 25.*