ICS 1286, (2006) 7-12. "Beyond the Mind-Body Dualism: Psychoanalysis and the Human Body", 6th Delphi International Psychoanalytic Symposium

From Palaeolithic “Venus” up to the Anthropomorphic Statue-Menhir.

Dimitriadis George*
HERAC, Philippi, 640 03 Krinides, Greece
ISSEP, Sardinia, Italy

Abstract. The Human Body as artistic topic nearly appears at the same time with the awakening of human being. Testimony, are the prehistoric paintings and graffiti, than from Upper Paleolithic, fill the caverns wall, cliffs and every imaginable material support, which it could be affected, scratched or colored. To the end of the eighteenth century the malesian archipelago tribes, accused the western missionaries to have carried in their culture not the” notion of spirit” that they already possessed, rather that one of “body”. In fact, for the prehistoric man, the body was not anatomicaly separated and isolated from the rest of the objective and identified world like individual. For they, the body and in particular the feminine body is the center of symbolic irradiation (cf., Cave of Cussac, France 25000 a.C.), that is, the “space” within the signs are gotten thicker cosmic order. The prehistoric mentality, in fact, perceives the human body through the procedures of transformation and trasmutation of the figures. Wanting, to operate in analytical way the “body immaginery” is necessary to group the artistic production made in three layers: 1. Feminine bodies, a tutto tondo, as appear the”Venus”, the “Neolithic Matrone” with great buttocks evidenced and breasts, often embellished with of the signs as V, W, zig-zag, moon scythe, symbols of fecondation, fertility and regeneration; 2. Feminine male bodies o/e, Early Bronze Age Statue-Menhir (cf., III millennium, Lunigiana, Italy) hybrid expression of the neolithic Atlantic megalitism and the Balkan-Danube one; 3. Male and/or feminine bodies as “praying man” type (cf., Nacquane, Valcamonica, Italy), appeared in the Neolithic and perduring until the maturity of the Greek world classic, full loads of movement, freedom and dinamicity.

Keywords: Chalcolithic, Human Body, Prehistoric Art, Prehistoric Mentality, Palaeolithic “Venus”, Statue-Menhir.

1. Introduction

According Merleau-Ponty, inside the labyrinth of embodiment the human body is the only way which we have in order to react with the external world. So, our bodily and qualitative perception permeate thinks and participate in their quality and thanks to that particular relation they can be manifest as bodies [5]. Infact, to perceive and perception indicate the topological tension which regulate the distance between me, intended as body and the real world (thinks). By the way, ogniqualvolta the body “dwelling” world a space/temporal grid installed placing human body in front of its duties. That’s why in L’Homme et l’adversité in Signes (1960), mention about Earth as the matrix of our time and space: every notion constructed in time our pre/history as human beings presented in one single world [10,11].

Prehistoric man dwelling the world! Thanks to that we were able to collect the real essence of the thinks. Thinks that they addressed to him and contemporary open dwells to his glance. His viewpoint is structured as: home itself isn’t the house view by no place, but the house view from all the places. Therefore the think is view from any time and from every place and through out the identical skyline (perception) structure. In this limes condition for the glance, body and w/World are exposed themselves to the original and primitive situation where the body becomes deformed (out of shape) because is in possession by the world!
Every cicatrix is an indelible trace, an oblio obstacle and a sign that restore body as memory. Marking the body, for the primordial societies, means re-design it as the unicum and appropriate space to deposit the tribe mark (Fig.1. Bòbo tribe, Central Africa). This mark signs the passage to the tribe community [8].

With your permission and before search deepest in what am going to name as “archaeology of the body” is useful to explore the identity of the name body by the ancient Greeks. In that time they used the name psyche to denote the unit of the multitude.

In Homer (cap. XI), actually the body is denoted as sôma when is report as cadaver, corpse. In other occasions run the name démas when is report to the body figure or chrìos when is report to the skin and mèlea when indicate parties of the body but especially its possibilities and chance to dwell the world. That’s why Homer was thinking according the prehistoric mentality [3,4] when psyche means eye that see, ear that hear and heart that beat. In conclusion for the Homer times phyche, thymos and noos, aren’t the three qualities of soul, according Plato but body functions. In this case the body is not perceived as res but rather as the expression of a function linked with its location in situ. Now its clear how can be the body permanent open (space possibilities) to the world, in order to collect its wholeness.
Anthropologically we are talking about shamanism and shaman rituals, when body and soul cooperate for specific purposes. Testimony can be found in the rock paintings and engravings (petroglyphs) around the globe. Rock art is the codify way used by prehistoric man to express his ideas. A kind of animate language, made by shadows, crayon and natural glues to communicate emotions and thought: the body acquire symbolic ambivalence in a social context.

2. Geo-philosophy. Keyword for the Prehistoric Art Comprehension

2.1. Deep Ecology concept

The space and the various places inside it can be considered as a topos based on a fit hank of social relations between the actors who carried the space with symbols and significances: it’s necessary to recall the action dimension meanwhile the landscape modelled in order to collect the sense it [13]. Recalling the fragmentary elements of the place we able to read the landscape. Thanks to the “Place” the man and the objects are collocated acquiring value and entity. Discover the “Place”, the fundamental quanta which re-enact the space, means rethink the space according the relations and the inter-relations existed inside it [6].

The relation intensity inside the so-called “transactional spaces” is evidence of the space habitual attendance and it’s functionality. The tribal world maintains constant the ratio between sacred (ceremonial, ancestral, spirits) and civil space. The middle land is occupied by the open-air sanctuaries, which are contemporary dance spaces (sacred choreography), sound spaces (sacred music) and rock art spaces (sacred scripture). The open space in front of human beings eyes as dwelling/wild limited space, food reserve (hunting territory)/migration space and ancestral myth (world)/civilize space [1]. Up to this red common loop the man has tried to understand environmental stimuli, found logic relationships (functionality, dematerialisation of signs) in order to follow the events dynamic and cohabit harmonically. The concept that coming out now is the space production or the space creation: how is organized the space in its internal?
We can distinguish four different typologies of space associated with the human beings who habit it:
1. The Place as superimposition of several units (atelier-couch);
2. The Social space as social relations dynamic shell (Tuareg Illabakan and Peul occupy the same grassland in Niger);

3. The Space as land and culture extension.

3. Archaeology of Human Body

Exploring the prehistoric man forma mentis is clear that the human body vision enter in a community body vision. Therefore a community body isn’t the summa or the vehicle of single bodies (entities) but the place where human beings, symbols, mythological entities, the earth and the sky can express their sense of belonging (sym-bàllein).
Thanks to the circulation of symbols, inside the primitive societies, there is no space for a body splitting between natural and cultural body, because its ritual integrate and compensate. Birth, dead, illness (physical or mental), meteorological phaenomena are transformed in culture events through out shaman formulas and invocations or ludic one as dances and wind songs.
The architectonic language also reflect the permeation between natural world and social group as both are modelled on the human body shape. Indeed, the social links are signed on the landscape with the birth of the anthropomorphic or theriomorphic villages plants. In fact, the disposition of the raw material dwell of the African villages designe the ancestral body of a deity or hero (cf. Fig. 2. Dogon village, Mali.). Sometimes the architectonic structure of the village design the creation, by the sprits action, of natural elements as lakes, rivers, mountains, etc (cf. Oasis Gasfa, Tunisia, [12]).

Exists a fine qualitative difference between the human body and the animal one: the dialectic relationship of the human body with its environment . The human body produce the its space in the world (Welt) carving around itself the environment to live (Um-welt) because is the space where technological issues (tools) can be product. Infact, the palaeolithic tools can be considered as “stone concepts”, from the moment that can link human needs and human thought [9]. Be-in-the-world as human being means simply dwelling the world to produce tools. In this way human beings can overhead their animal condition which desire just to live. With his action reveal the essence of the materials provoking their nature (heraus-fordern), according Heidegger.

4. The Image of Human Body in Prehistory

The myth of gorgòneion tells about Medusa’s face which petrify everyone who desire have a look at her face. Nonoboby knows the real face of Medusa and for this reason is quite difficult to recognize her. Our face is the vaccum of our body which is open into the permanent abyss of cosmos. The vaccum can be filled up only by the delimitation of the face or a possible topography of it... . Perhaps, this is the answer to the absent of human face representations in the upper Palaeolithic era and the strong production of masks. The best evidences are date 14.000 BP in the Magdalenian period from Grotto El Juyo Sanctuary, Cantabria-Spain (cf. Fig.3) formed by a monolith and situated in the cave entrance. The boulder has an irregular shape modelled by natural deep cracks which assembling a theriomorphic face. A natural depression in the right part of the cliff stimulate the curiosità of the prehistoric man and suggest him to carve another one to the left [7]. A lengthwise crack remember the noose and the mouth of the lion (?). Similar evidence was found in the Grotto Hohlenstein-Stadel, Asselfingen, Germany dating about 32.000 B.P. It’s an ivory small shape statue looks like as a “Man-Lion” coming form the awaking of the human spirituality in the Palaeolithic era. Is the prove that humans start exploring their double identity condition: natural and culture one [2].
Many years later a human profile was painted with natural black color (guano) inside the Grotto Fontanet in France, meanwhile in Addaura Grotto, Mt. Pellegrino, Sicily the first human scene engraved (10.000 B.P.).

Already the human body has acquired its aesthetics standards. A mix of dymanicity and freshness called “sociological body immaginery” [14]: from the Palaeolithic “Venus”, to the essential late glacial schematism art of hunters/gatherers-fishers (cf. Fig. 4) called the “rigid nudity” and the Chalcolithic statue-stelae up to the ideological configuration of the human body in Neolithic period impressed on vessels or artefacts.

4. Figures

Fig. 1. Central Africa. Chief of Tribe Bòbo.

Fig. 2. Dogon, Malì. The villane structure is based on the principle of aticulations and connected stones. 1-4 (pelvis and shoulders): four primordial ancestral males; 5-8 (knees and elbows): four primordial ancestral females; 9: primordial order.

Fig. 3. Cueva El Juyo, Spain. 14.000 BP. The theriomorphic stone is situated in the grottos’ entrance.

Fig. 4. Nebra, Museum of Prehistory, Jena- Halle. Female statue, type Gönnersdorf-Nebra.

References

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[2] Cassiser Ernst., Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 2. The Mythic Thought, 1923.
[3] Dimitriadis G., Solar Ships from the Dessert to the Alps, WAC, Washington D.C., USA, 2003a.
[4] Dimitriadis G., Analytic Rock Art: a New Methodological Approach, Jujuy, Argentina (Proceedings forthcoming), 2003b.
[5] Fergnani F., Il corpo vissuto, Il Saggiatore, Milano, 1979.
[6] Fremont F., La region, espace vécu, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1981.
[7] Freeman L.G. – Echegaray J.G., The Magdalenian Site of El Juyo (Cantabria, Spain), BCSP, XXVIII, Capo di Ponte, Italy 1995.
[8] Galimberti U., Il Corpo, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1983.
[9] Gehlen A., Umernsch und Spatkultur. Philosophische Ergebnisse und Aussagen, 1975.
[10] Merleau-Ponty M., L’Hommes et l’adversité in Signes, Paris, 1960.
[11] Merleau-Ponty M., L’oeil et l’esprit, Paris, 1961.
[12] Pâques V., L’arbre cosmique dans la pensée populaire et dans la vie quotidienns du nord-ovest africain, Paris, 1964.
[13] Peirce M. – Lewis M., “The Reinvention of Cultural Geography”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1979.
[14] Schilder P., The Image and Apparence of the Human Body, 1935.


* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +39 331 6347789.
E-mail address: gdimitriadis@herac.gr