Before and Beyond Representation: Towards an enactive conception of the Palaeolithic image
Lambros Malafouris · 2007
A famous philosopher wrote in his Philosophical Investigations that the reason ‘[w]e find certain things about seeing puzzling’ is ‘because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough’ (Wittgen stein 1953/1958, 212). I do not think that we need any striking experimental demonstration in order to accept the validity of the above claim. A simple example suffices to illustrate what lies at the heart of the matter: look at the two drawings (Fig. 21.1) taken from the so-called ‘Panel of the Horses’ from Chauvet cave (Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France). If we ask ourselves what we see when we look at this image the majority of us will immediately and without any particular effort recognize a pair of rhinoceroses facing each other. The ease by which we are able, as modern human perceivers, to make such identifications belies the complexity of the cognitive processes behind them and, I suggest, renders invisible some phenomena of special interest in the study of the Palaeolithic image. Trying to draw out those hidden processes lets us attempt to go deeper into the phenomenology of our perception by asking the following: How exactly do we see, and what exactly do we see when we look at this image printed on paper? What does our experience of seeing really consist of? One might think that these are questions not for archaeology but for neuroscience or