Prehistoric shamans likely directed artists to depict heaven and earth in caves
Evidence
With the assistance of ritualistic drumming, chanting, or dancing, they enjoyed new sensations; by singing and dancing to the point of exhaustion, they experienced a kind of wild euphoria. With the ingestion of psychotropic substances, they hallucinated. In the absence of scientific explanations, how were our ancestors to make sense of all these remarkable, mysterious, wonderful, and frightening experiences and sensations? For interpretations, they relied on their shamans. It’s possible that many of these shamans were artists themselves, or may have directed artists—in much the same way Pope Julius II directed Michelangelo—to produce images of heaven and earth like those in the Chauvet and other caves. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 314
Categorization
- STORYSTEM: The image of a shaman-director commissioning cave art like a Renaissance pope is a rich worldbuilding seed for a fantasy/historical fiction scene.