THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL AND

ITS APPLICATION

By Elmor H Becker – August 2015

INDEX

1 INTRODUCTION
2 THE BASIS AND APPLICATION OF THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL

3 CRITIQUES AND UNCERTAINTIES PERTAING TO THE NEUROPSYSHOLOGICAL MODEL

4 CONCLUSION

5 REFERENCES
 1 INTRODUCTION

The shamanism or neuropsychological model laid out by Lewis-Williams and his colleagues has
undoubtedly had a powerful impact on rock art research in southern Africa and elsewhere in the world. It
has also added to our knowledge of past-lifeways of pre-historic hunter-gatherers. This model is primarily
based on the fact that shamanism is a universal and uniform characteristic of hunter-gathers over space
and time. Many researchers have complained about the sources (or the lack thereof) for this ethnographic
analogy and about the generalistic nature of the models’ application to the archaeological record (Mcall
2006: 224). I will discuss the basis for the model in reference to detailed ethnography of the San and
other evidence to defend its legitimacy. I will also then discuss the main evidence for the opposition of this
model.

2 THE BASIS AND APPLICATION OF THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL

The San shamanic experiences (specifically those experiences emanating from rituals performed by
shamans in an altered state of consciousness) may deliver interesting insight into the interpretation of
hunter-gather rock art. Nearly all hunter-gatherer societies practice shamanism. This usually involve a
belief in a layered cosmos where realms above and below the level of material life exists. Within these
levels, breakthrough points between these realms exist which can be spiritually entered by achieving
some sort of altered state of consciousness. There are a number of ways which one can achieve an
altered state. Some of these may include sensory deprivation, the taking of psychoactive plants and / or
substances, exposure to extreme climactic conditions, the suffering of extreme pain and trance dances. It
is known that almost all mammals can experience altered states, definitely all humans can. Important to
note is that the basic principles of altered states and the experience thereof are universal for all Homo
sapiens sapiens, irrespective of their cultural background. But the interpretation of the experience of the
altered state itself is unique and bound to the specific culture it is experienced within (Unisa 2010:21).

Many scholars (for example Siegel & Lewis-Willaims and Chippindale) have shown that altered states of
consciousness may be divided into three different stages. Stage 1 is characterised by visions of luminous
geometric shapes including dots, zigzags, grids, meandering lines and so forth, which are experienced in
a person's field of vision referred to as phosphenes, form constants and entoptic phenomena. Because
this emanates from our own central nervous system, and we all have that in common, we've had this
ability to experience the shapes for a least the past 100 000 years. The depictions thereof in rock art are
universal across time and space. Even though all people have this ability to experience them the choices
about which ones we depict in rock art are governed by culture. Stage 2 is the interpretation of the
geometric images by the person undergoing the altered state. This interpretation is done from a cultural
and emotional stance. These geometric entoptics are then transformed into familiar shapes called
construals. This is the brain’s method in trying to make sense of the images by matching it against stored
information in the brain. A good example of such depictions by the San is the nested u-shapes that are
depicted as honeycombs in the wild. The final stage, Stage 3, involve the experiencing of very complex
hallucinations of all the senses, not just the visual. This stage is also sometimes referred to as the iconics
and entoptics (Unisa 2010:21). These iconic hallucinations are linked to highly emotional experiences.
Animals for the San are emotionally charged objects, with the eland being the most charged. It is
therefore easy to understand the prominence of the eland in San rock art. These iconic images also
regularly overlie or surround the entoptics promoting the idea of the different stages of the altered states.
This stage 3 is very complex and the most vivid. During this phase the therianthropes (part human part
animal forms) are usually seen. This is explained by the individual trying to take part in its own imagery
where people feel themselves turning into animals. Depictions are usually in the form of beings with extra
limbs and/or digits (polymelia), elongated figures as a kind of trance-buck. Not all people experience all
three stages of trance and some stages can overlap other stages as we see with different kinds of
perceptions in the form of replication, fragmentation, integration, superpositioning, juxtapositioning,
reduplication and rotation. The description of altered states of consciousness in terms of these three
stages is known as the neuropsychological model or three stages of trance (TST) (Unisa 2010: 22).
Together with ethnography this model has proven to be highly influencial in the interpretation of rock art in
South Africa and in many parts of the world.

The trance dance is a typical form of ritual dance undertaken by all members of the San community.
Through hyper-ventilation and audio-driving (Women sit in a circle and clap hands and sing monotonous
songs for hours), the dancers enter an altered state of consciousness or trance where they experience
visual, somatic and aural hallucinations which they interpret as experiences of them in the spirit world.
This trance dance can be so intense that it causes nasal bleeding amongst some of the dancers. This
blood is thought to be very powerful. Ethnography shows us that the San believed that the universe
consisted of supernatural potency, which could be found in all animals. The eland had most of this
potency, particularly stored its blood and sweat. They believe that when an eland dies, it releases this
potency which is invisible to all except to the shamans. This potency can then be harnessed by the
shamans by entering into altered states of consciences which the shamans perceive to be the spirit world.
This is done by taking part in trance dances (Unisa 2010: 17). Most elands depicted in the San art is
concerned with eland symbolism related to the trance dance and not related to specific rituals within the
San community as previously thought. Many other depictions show the trance dance as central to San
art. In numerous paintings in southern Africa we observe humans painted bleeding from the nose, in
postures typical of the trance dance (bending-forward and arms-back), with trance accoutrements such
as flywhisks and dancing rattles and many elands painted in dying postures thus depicted releasing their
supernatural potency. San ethnography also suggests that many of the San paintings were made of eland
blood hence increasing supernatural potency of the paintings. As San ethnography shows the San also
danced in painted shelters and turned towards the paintings to harness the supernatural potency in them.
Because the San regarded the rock surface as a veil between this world and a super-natural one it thus
highly probable that a San shaman would project particular entoptic visions experienced through trance
on to rock surfaces (Blundell 1998: 8). San shamanic belief and practice is deeply imbedded in their art.
The San also used complex metaphors to describe an altered state of consciousness. Four main
metaphors were indentified; death which is reflected as intense sensations such as sweating, trembling
staggering and movement as if an antelope undergone by shamans during trance; the experience of
being underwater with parallels such as difficulty in breathing, weightlessness and affected vision where it
is sometimes depicted as fish and eels combined with other trance indicators in rock art such as flywhisks
(Unisa 2010: 18); the metaphor of flight where birds are used as an indication of a trance experience; the
methaphor of fight depicted as fighting eland indicative of their supernatural potency. San rituals and the
art is understood as a complex system of metaphors which also can be interpreted in the light of the
neuropsychological model referred to San shamanic experiences (Unisa 2010:19).

It is thus suggested that since shamans experience hallucinations, some of the imagery in the art
depicted are these hallucinatory experiences. Rock art in various parts of the world is similar to the
imagery experienced in altered states. Entoptic (within vision) images are believed to derive from the
nervous system itself where these images are generated in the eye and within the optic system beyond
the retina. All people over the world can thus experience and see this imagery regardless of their cultural
background. The question however is how to apply neuropsychology to ethnographically-informed
interpretations of rock art. Lewis-Williams and Dowson used South American Tukano art, North American
Coso Range rock art, and San rock art in southern Africa to propose a solution. Two interesting paintings
that illustrate the powerful explanatory potential of a dual ethnographic-neuropsychological approach are
found in the Cathcart and Harrismith districts of South Africa (Blundell 1998: 3-4). Except for the
ethnographically explained depictions of blood falling from human noses, dancing bending forward, and
dancing sticks in both hands it seems that all three stages of the neuropsychological model are visible in
the Cathcart paintings. Basic entoptic percepts such as zigzags, dots, and the lattice pattern (very
common in South African rock art) on an antelope are present. The second stage is also portrayed
through two human figures on the zigzag which do not have legs. The third stage of the model is
represented by the non-real serpentine-like figure with a head with "ears" and two tusk-like protrusions.
which is certainly not real. The Kerkenberg, Harrismith paintings shows a spirit-eland not merely pictures
The antelope have been partially depicted because they are emerging from (or returning to) the spirit
world behind the rock face. The antelope’s legs have not been matched up to bodies because these are
probably meant to be in the spirit world itself. The Cathcart and Harrismith examples that I have show that
neuropsychology has added a helpful tool to the ethnographic interpretation of southern African rock art
(Blundell 1998: 5-8).
Rock art in the Dillinger Cave in central Montana, USA interpreted with the basic principles of the
neuropsychological model show that painted figures at Dillinger Cave show all three stages of trance. The
figures and depictions are expected to be drawn from experience during a hallucinogenic trance. The
pictographs are believed to result from shamanic trance activities which occurred in the Montana rock art
sites. They found symbolic self-portraits of shamans with identification based on ethnographic analogy of
the area. Analysis indicates that Dillinger Cave figures resemble images created during an altered state of
consciousness, supporting the shamanistic function of the art. However, here the neuropsychological
model does not explain why or how trance may have been entered or indicate any cultural meaning of the
drawings but it surely helps to evaluate site function or association (Greer & Greer 2010: 105-118).

Many geometric signs in the Upper Palaeolithic art are almost impossible to induce meaning from
because of an absence of directly relevant ethnography. Lewis-Williams and Dowson (1988: 201 & 218)
believe by constructing a neuropsychological model which states the origin of entopic phenomena to be
present in three stages of altered states of consciousness can explain establishing factors which may
hold true across space and time because it is linked to a commonly shared nervous systems among all
humans over the time and space of rock art. When this model is applied to two known shamanistic rock
arts namely the San and Shoshonean Coso, Upper Paleolithic and parietal art it clearly shows that the art
was associated with altered states of consciousness. However the neuropsychological model doesn’t go
without strong critizism and opposition.

3 CRITIQUES AND UNCERTAINTIES PERTAING TO THE NEUROPSYSHOLOGICAL MODEL

Many questions, critique and uncertainties exist within the neuropsychological model. The question
arrises why are there high number of entoptic imagery in certain areas in southern Africa and in other
areas not? Why do particular entoptics dominate in some areas while in others areas are absent? It is
proposed that more localized ethnographic and / or other evidence is needed to fully enable this model as
a general rule for the interpretation of rock art. The neuropsychological model does well in describing the
origins of geometric imagery in rock art but it sure does not explain the meaning of these images (Blundell
1998: 9-10).

Bednarik et al (1990: 77-79) indicates that phosphenes ("normal-state," non iconic entoptics) forms in art
are commonly used by two groups of people: children 3 -4 years of age and hominids or humans of the
pre-iconic era. All humans, even some blind people, experience phosphenes, but when it comes to
spontaneous phosphene experiences it is far greatest in infancy and almost absent in shamans.
Hallucinogen or trance-induced phosphenes account for only a tiny fraction of such experiences as seen
in many studies conducted. Bednarik et al go further to add that a corpus of ethnographic evidence from
all parts of the world indicates that body painting, cicatrices, tattoos, decorative paraphernalia, and gar-
ments all provide significant information about their wearers. They propose that such enculturated
information is a more plausible way of interpreting rock art because rock art which ultimately derived from
from phosphene forms may have been more emblemic having relevant meaning and function (Bednarik
et al 1990: 79).

The art richest in posphenes are Australian rock art and it is conspicuously a non-shamanistic based art
type. Also, posphenes only account for less than 5% of the rock arts of the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe,
of the Coso Range, and of the San. It is also believed that the neuropsychological model has not properly
investigated the pre-historic art of Piaui, Brazil, those of Bolivia, those of the U.S.A, various rock arts in
Africa, the earliest paintings of India and other Asian art, various bodies of European rock art, the
phosphenic art of New Caledonia and the extensive pre-iconic petroglyph traditions of Australia (Bednarik
et al 1990: 79-81).

Bahn et al (2003: 214) mentions that the trance phenomena fall into two general classes namely a drug-
induced trance and naturally-induced trance. These two general categories of trance experience differ
very much from each other. The only trance states that are consistent with those described in the three
TST model are drug-induced trances caused by plants containing mescaline, LSD, or psilocybine. There
is also an extreme variability in these drug-induced hallucinatory experiences. Six naturally-induced
trance states namely hypnosis (both heterohypnosis which is a trance induced by another party, and
autohypnosis which is a trance induced by the subject), meditation, relaxation states, peak experiences,
psychoanalytic free-associative trance, and ritual dance-induced trance is not consistent with the TST
model (Bahn et al 2003: 214). Ludwig listed over 70 types of altered states of consciousness that were
not induced by drugs, none of these naturally-induced trance states are consistent with the TST model
(Bahn et al 2003: 214).

The onus of proof thus rests on the proponents of the TST model to prove that mescaline, LSD, or
psilocybine hallucinogens were available to the artistis and that they can be detected in macro or micro-
botanical remains of the relevant plants in caves like Chauvet, La Garma or Cussac. They have failed to
show that (Bahn et al 2003: 215-218).

Bahn et al (2003: 216) also mention that artistic marking may be done purely for its own sake, as a
personal record of events and experiences, as a rite of passage, for fertility or hunting magic, as a form of
symbolism, for religious reasons or as a form of graffiti. The aboriginals of Australia have shown that they
created considerable pieces of art in rock shelters while stuck in rock shelters and caves during
prolonged periods of monsoonal rain – showing that it may merely be a form of past-time.

One among countless examples is a paper by Wallis (2002) which applied the neuropsychological model
to the rock art of NW Malakula in Melanesia shows how researchers can comb the art in search of motifs
which are complementary to ethnography and neuropsychology to fit to the different stages of the TST
model. Bahn et al (2003: 223) regards this as a kind of misguided interpretation as ‘connect-the-dots’
prehistory. Furthermore, the fact the TST hypothesis is very difficult to disprove using solid scientific
evdidence shows that it is not scientifically very useful (Bahn et al 2003: 217).

4 CONCLUSION

There is very little evidence that show that natural trance states however induced bring about even simple
visual hallucinations at all resembling those found in rock art. As we have seen here entoptics are their
depictions are not all universal, many varieties exists. Furthermore, the application of the TST can only
help indentify site use or association at least but to interpret meaning and function the model is not useful
not scientifically useful.
 5 REFERENCES

Bednarik, R., Lewis-Williams, J. and Dowson, T. 1990.On neuropsychology and shamanism in

rock art. Current Anthropology 31 (1): 77-84.

Blundell, G. 1998. On neuropsychology in southern African rock art research. Anthropology of

Consciousness 9(1): 3-12.

Greer, M. and Greer, J. 2003. A test for shamanic trance in central Montana rock art. Plains
Anthropologist 48 (186): 105-120.

Helvenston, P., Bahn, P., Bradshaw, J. and Chippindale, C. 2003. Testing the “Three stages of
trance‟ model. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13(2): 213-224.

Lewis-Williams, J.D. & Dowson, T.A. 1988. The signs of all times: entoptic phenomena in Upper
Palaeolithic art. Current Anthropology 29(2):201-245.

McCall, G.2007. Add shamans and stir? A critical review of the shamanism model of forager
rock art production. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26: 224-233.

Unisa. 2010. Prehistoric Rock Art. Only study guide for AGE3704. University of South Africa,
Pretoria