Pearson, James L. Shamanism and the Ancient Mind: a Cognitive Approach to Archaeology

International Social Science Review, Fall-Winter, 2003 by Joseph Andrew Park Wilson

Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2002. x 195 pp. Cloth, $69.00; paper, $24.95.

Shamanism and the Ancient Mind is an interesting synthetic overview of cognitive archaeology, targeted to a broad audience. Pearson is a believer in scientific post-processualism, and a convert to archaeology after a career as a business executive. He employs a neuroscientific approach to altered states of consciousness (ASC) associated with the shamanic worldview. Postulating an ancient origin of shamanism, on the basis of entoptic phenomena observed in rock-art, and supported by ethnographic accounts, this study places earlier work, such as that of J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson, into a larger scholarly framework. (1)

Unexpectedly, Pearson begins with a discussion of the archaeological analogy used by astronomers. As ancient stratigraphic layers are deeply buried, so are ancient astronomical events observed in the distant reaches of space. The purpose for this tangential introduction is not clear until the middle of the text, when a converse astronomical analogy is proposed in support of cognitive archaeology. As astronomy is observational and interpretive, not experimental, and yet quintessentially scientific, so Pearson argues, is archaeology. Analogical inference and neuroscience are seen as the keys to the interpretation of Paleolithic rock-art, whereby one may empathize with the ancient artists. Contextualizing the cognitive approach, the first half of the text provides a concise history of related archaeological methodologies, and their differing approaches to anthropology. This should be very useful for the novice seeking a grasp of the processual versus post-processual debate, in the context of anthropological archaeology.

In the second half, Pearson outlines the history of rock-art research internationally and in the Americas with the goal of debunking earlier theoretical interpretations (art for art's sake, totemism, hunting magic, and structuralism) before setting up a shamanistic interpretation based on neuropsychology and ethnography. Connecting the shaman's trance with hallucinogen-derived ASC, Pearson credits Lewis-Williams and company with the first broad and flexible application of this idea to Paleolithic art, while allowing that Mircea Eliade and others were first to interpret Upper Paleolithic art as the result of shamanism. (2) Most crucially, it is suggested that Old World and New World scholars have independently arrived at their shamanistic interpretations of rock-art.

Chapter 7, "Shamanism," introduces the reader to archaeological and ethnographic evidence for shamanism worldwide, emphasizing the use of medicine and ASC. Before he begins the difficult task of defining shamanism, Pearson implies that it is a panhuman and archaic phenomenon. Based on a discussion of its Tungus origins, he states that the term shaman describes, "by definition, one who attains an ecstatic state" (p. 74), identical to an ASC or trance, whether drug-induced or otherwise, but drug-induced more often than not. Following Eliade, Pearson connects the ecstatic trance with the flight of the soul, and the shamanic initiation with symbolic death and resurrection. He also stresses the preponderance of a vertically tiered shamanic cosmos, with upper, lower, and middle realms.

Pearson then prepares the way for the application of cognitive archaeology to rock-art. In presenting a history of the dating techniques applied to rock-art in America and Europe, Pearson demonstrates the applicability of ethnographic data to the interpretation of Numic (Uto-Aztecan) rock-art of the Coso Range of the western Great Basin of North America. Because this art is interpreted to be the result of shamanism, the ASC is considered the primary condition of shamanism. In Chapter 9, the non-archaeological case for shamanism is made. More precisely, it is a non-archaeological case for a neuropsychological approach to shamanism, relying upon the ethnography of drug use, hallucinogen-induced trance states, and psychopathology.

The archaeological case for shamanism follows. Pearson makes an excellent case for a relationship between rock-art and ASC-related shamanism in southwestern North America and Africa. This reviewer is particularly intrigued by the cross-cultural comparison between images blending human and animal forms, and accounts of similar transformations as drug-induced hallucinations (pp. 12-31). Pearson also makes a good case that the Middle Paleolithic "flower-burial" site in Shanidar Cave, Iraq, shows evidence of curative ritual activities, but it remains unclear whether this necessarily proves the universality of shamanism. There is abundant archaeological evidence of drug use and shamanism, both as preserved botanical remains, and in ceramic and textile representations.

The conclusion is a defense of the cognitive approach against the critics, who often support non-shamanist interpretations of rock-art, which Pearson rejects. Still, to his credit, he allows that shamanist and neuroscientific interpretations need not entirely exclude other interpretations, such as hunting magic and archaeoastronomy. He skillfully employs a post-modern philosophy of science to defend ethnoarchaeology, analogy, and the cognitive approach to archaeology. The application of these ideas to major archaeological themes is fascinating, especially with regard to trade and the origins of agriculture. The value of drugs was surely great, and the occurrence of hallucinogenic cereal ergots may well have been a motivating factor in the domestication of grains (p. 63). This observation is one of Pearson's more important insights.