Díaz-Andreu, M. 2001. An all-embracing universal hunter-gatherer religion? Discussing shamanism and Levantine rock-art. In Francfort, H.-P. et al. (eds.), The Concept Shamanism. Uses and abuses. Bibliotheca Shamanistica, vol. 10. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó: 117-134. By Margarita Díaz-Andreu

https://www.academia.edu/1612411/D%C3%ADaz_Andreu_M_2001_An_all_embracing_universal_hunter_gatherer_religion_Discussing_shamanism_and_Levantine_rock_art_In_Francfort_H_P_et_al_eds_The_Concept_Shamanism_Uses_and_abuses_Bibliotheca_Shamanistica_vol_10_Budapest_Akad%C3%A9miai_Kiad%C3%B3_117_134?email_work_card=title In this article I agree with those who see shamanism as a religious technique rather than a type of religion. As a religious technique the similarities in shamanic religious practices all over the world " can be seen as deriving from the ways in which the human nervous system behaves in altered states" (Clottes – Lewis-Williams 1998: 19). However, I am highly suspicious of anthropological generalisations linking this technique with a particular kind of ritual specialist and a specific cosmological understanding. I propose that the inflexibility of the typological method in evolutionary and culture-historical research led to a lack of awareness of the sheer diversity of religions and religious practices within hunter-gatherers and early fanning communities. Only recently has this inflexibility been challenged, but there is still a lot of critical thinking to be done on the accuracy of the basis of the anthropological study of religion. Those who work on past religious are, therefore, poorly equipped to undertake studies on prehistoric religious beliefs, and are even less prepared—I would say that we are not prepared at all—to be able to specify the type of religion the prehistoric groups we are studying had. The lack of ethnographic sources is an insuperable impediment. The likelihood of the neuropsychological method on its own providing a competent reading of prehistoric art. A comparison between Levantine and South African art has shown how the lack of ethnographic sources for the former prevents us from being sure that the shamanic interpretation fits better than alternative readings. On its own the neuropsychological method is not accurate enough either to distinguish between real cntoptics and abstract motifs which happen to resemble the visions people see in the first stage of altered state of consciousness. Neither can it be deployed to decide whether figurative images such as composite animal-human motifs represent hallucinations of third stage of trance or just someone in a festival attire. Notwithstanding my critique, I do not discount that communities who produced the Levantine paintings used trance as a religious technique. It is a possibility that, unfortunately, with the available data archaeologists are not in the position to either confirm or deny. A claim for a best-fit explanation regarding the shamanic hypothesis for Levantine art simply cannot be justified. Nor is it, I believe, in the case of Upper Palaeolithic art.