Images, Pictures and Prehistories

Using the example of Aurignacian "cave art," the earliest uncontroversial case of picture-making in the record of human evolution (c. 35,000-25,000 BC), this lecture addresses a central dispute between pictorial iconology and the "anthropology of images." According to some theories of cave art, the pictures created virtual environments, highly animated, immersive, and even "illusionistic," possibly associated with shamanistic practices. On this account, the pictures functioned "beyond representation," creating a "presence." But how does one account for the phenomenology of pictoriality itself in these contexts?

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