Lascaux: Why a cave became a sanctuary

Public lecture by David Lewis-Williams

as part of the Public Lecture Series Rock Art & Symbolic Expression. A Southern Africa – France Dialogue

Wednesday 23 May 2018

18:00 for 18:30 | Origins Centre Museum

 Wits University, West Campus, Corner of Yale Road &, Enoch Sontonga Ave, Johannesburg

Professor Emeritus David Lewis-Williams focused his research efforts on the areas of rock art, cultural heritage and the rights of the San people of southern Africa. He developed methods for the interpretation of sophisticated San rock art, a significant part of South Africa’s heritage. He is recognised as the father of rock-art archaeology the world over, and his work remains the most seminal in all endeavours to contribute to the understanding of rock art within archaeology.

He conducted his research in the Drakensberg, studying rock paintings. The interpretation of the rock paintings elsewhere was, as a result, based on the methodology he developed. He has a profound command of the now-almost extinct /Xam language spoken by the San people, and was invited by former President Thabo Mbeki to translate the South African national motto into the /Xam San language.

He later extended his research to the Palaeolithic cave art of western Europe, and his book The Mind in the Cave has been widely acclaimed.

He remains the only South African to have received the prestigious James Henry Breasted Prize from the American Historical Association, and the Excellence in Archaeological Analysis Award from the Society for American Archaeology. In 2006 he became the only archaeologist in South Africa to receive Honorary Doctorates from the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand. He recently received the Order of the Baobab (Gold) for his exceptional and distinguished contribution to the scientific field of archaeology.

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