‘It is hard to praise this book too highly. I have read nothing more fascinating all year’ – John Carey,The Sunday Times

‘The most comprehensive and convincing explanation for the cave art in Europe so far’– Chris Stringer, The Evening Standard

‘A genuine masterpiece’ – Jean Clottes

‘A masterly piece of detective work’ – The Sunday Telegraph

‘A thorough, accessible and beautifully illustrated history of the origins of art based on anthropological and neurological research’ – The Observer

The breathtakingly beautiful art created deep inside the caves of western Europe in the late Ice Age provokes awe and wonder in equal measure. What do these animals and symbols, depicted on the walls of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, tell us about the nature of the ancestral mind? How did these images spring, sophisticated and fully formed, seemingly from nowhere into the human story?

The Mind in the Cave puts forward the most plausible explanation yet proposed for the origins of image-making and art. David Lewis-Williams skilfully interweaves a lifetime of anthropological research with the most recent neurological insights to offer a convincing account of how we became human and, in the process, began to make art.

This is a masterful piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors and on the nature of our own consciousness and experience.

Also by David Lewis-Williams
Deciphering Ancient Minds
Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion
Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods
Also of interest
Our Prehistoric Past: Art and Civilization