Before 68,000 BCE: (Rock Art and Shamanism — The Deep Connection Between Shamanistic Religion and Rock Art Around the World, Shamans Being the Principal Arti…

Before 68,000 BCE: (Rock Art and Shamanism — The Deep Connection Between Shamanistic Religion and Rock Art Around the World, Shamans Being the Principal Artists Wherever Clear Evidence Exists, Depicting Their Spirit Experiences by Painting or Engraving Figures of Animals and Other Items Understood as Special Links to the Spirit Realm, the Eland Serving This Role for Southern African Khoesan Speakers While European Cave Art Depictions of the Woolly Rhinoceros Reflect the Same Belief About Notable Animals as Bearers of Spirit Power): What half a century of research has revealed is that the expression of shamanistic religion had a deep connection to rock art around the world. Wherever clear evidence survives, it turns out that the shamans themselves were the principal artists. In their art, shamans depicted their spirit experiences — painting or engraving figures of the animals and other items understood to be special conduits to the spirit realm. Among southern African Khoesan-speaking peoples in recent millennia, the eland, largest of the antelopes, especially filled this role as a spirit-bearing animal. European cave art depictions of animals such as the woolly rhinoceros appear to reflect the same fundamental belief: that certain notable animals served as bearers of spirit power. The connection between art and religion, in other words, is not incidental. It is structural. The first artists were not making art for its own sake. They were performing a religious function — translating the visions they experienced in trance states into permanent visual form on rock surfaces. The eland on the walls of a Drakensberg shelter and the rhinoceros on the walls of Chauvet cave are not merely depictions of animals. They are theological documents, records of encounters with the spirit realm, produced by ritual specialists whose art was inseparable from their spiritual practice. Art and religion were born together, in the same act, by the same people, for the same purpose. And both were born in Africa.