>more interested in the animal kingdom, or the grandeur of nature, than faces in rocks or trees

I'd agree, but there's a difference between being interested in something and having it hardwired into your head.

FW was right, humans do have bits hardwired for face recognition. I'll spare everyone the turgid detail, suffice to say it's well documented in many Sciency journals. It probably goes waaay back in evolutionary terms. Well before megalithic stuff, but that's not to say itcouldn't have had an input into the choice of stones/sites.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html

Any thoughts as to why British rock art is apparently abstract and possibly "hard wired" a la Lewis-Williams? Contrast it with Scandinavian rock art of a similar or slightly later period. That is mainly representational showing figures, boats, animals and carts. The Scandinavian rock art being very similar to that found in Africa and elsewhere. Everywhere else, we get figures and abstract, but not here.

Why is no British rock art representational? Odd isn't it? Makes me wonder if it is not art (in the decorative or pictorial sense) at all. Diagramatic or were the depressions and pathways between them made to hold liquids for divination? Or back to my ritual finger tracing?

"we have to start from the premises of what might have been the most important things in their lives."

Isn't that (probably) the living world around and within them? Along with that is a global commonality of tribal/familial legend and creation myths, which hold the connection between themselves and the world around them/us. Without delineating Maslow's pyramid of need s and all that hoohaaa, it could be suggested that any hierarchy is subject to change. If religion is to be always secondary, it's odd that religion crops up in times when all other needs aren't being met. This could suggest that there is not simply (only) a pyramid, but a complex and fluid hierarchical scale of need beholden to the individual's/group's location in time, place and circumstance?

Excellent thread, but as ever I'm getting lost. I'm not sure that us seeing faces in rocks and trees is hard wired. I do believe it has more to do with the way we learn to see pictures. It has even more to do with two dimensional photographs than three dimensional reality.

Let me explain if I may. Go into the field and look at the rocks as you walk among them and then take some photographs. You see no faces, but when you look at your photographs later, you suddenly see a face. But that face was just a temporary arrangement of light and shade. Take a photograph an hour later and it looks quite different. Try it. The exceptions are when you come across a strong profile that is face-like in all lights especially as a silhouette.

The thing is that once you see a face in a photo, you can't not see that face in that photo. The pattern has arranged itself in your mind and will not go away. Be warned and take a look at this http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=9156&orderby=

http://www.quantumbiocommunication.com/media/is-religion-rooted-in-the-human-brain.html