Genevieve Von Petzinger

This book is well written and contains an introduction to Paleolithic cave art and, to a lesser extent, a history of humans during the Paleolithic. It also describes several caves in a way that will give readers a good sense of the nature of the sites.

As far as the thesis of the book, the author uses her database of geometric cave signs (the signs that do not clearly represent things like animals) to evaluate whether they have deeper meaning or connections. She groups these signs into 32 categories and then looks at the distribution of signs within these categories across sites.

While a handful of the categories are stylistically unique enough to justify this exercise, most are things like lines, dots, triangles, circles, squiggly lines, zig-zag lines, open angles, half-circles, rectangles, ovals, 'x's, hatch patterns, etc... Arguing that the presence of such signs across Europe or Africa is evidence of anything beyond those being the most simple and obvious two-dimensional geometric shapes that can be drawn is dubious.… (plus d'informations)

This is very good, and the focus of the book is truly exciting work. Von Petzinger is paying needed attention to aspects of Paleolithic art that have curiously escaped a ton of notice, and that's amazing. On the downside she doesn't really get to that focus until fairly late in the book: the first chapters are an introduction to rock/cave art, and also a bit of a personal account of how she (along with her photographer partner/husband) became acquainted with this art & the difficulties of accessing it (no fault of the author, but her discussions of the creepiness and discomfort of these underground spaces didn't hit me -- I'm a caver -- like they'll probably hit a typical reader). If I recall correctly, discussion of the signs apart from the depictions of animals, etc. doesn't really start until Chapter 11 ... and the work is in its early stages, so in a very real way this book is like an initial report rather than a full study. But ... wow.… (plus d'informations)