A number of books in the recent past have attempted to make sense of why early prehistoric people engraved and painted imagery inside the deep recesses of caves. The first title reviewed here is a recent addition to the intellectual bookshelf which attempts to clean up and define the terminology and approaches used by academics, specialists and students alike. I am sure the book will orchestrate a few debates among the select few!

The book is divided into eight chapters, which consolidate and synthesise current and past thinking. Although discovery and description aid our understanding of cave art, Rosengren concentrates on attitudes and the rhetoric of the discoverers and the commentators. Throughout this book he uses numerous examples that clearly chart the development of rock art studies. Several that stick in my mind include the politik behind the first discovery of painted cave art at Altamira Cave in northern Spain in 1880 (see pp 41–3) and the current debate on shamanism.

Despite the legitimate reporting on the discovery of cave art in Altamira by amateur archaeologist Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, it was fiercely rejected by the scholarly establishment. The reasons given were numerous and unfounded. Following a number of other cave art discoveries, it soon became clear that early modern humans were capable of producing such complex imagery and as a result, one of the rejecters, Émile Cartailhac, facilitated a posthumous public apology in 1902. What makes this story so interesting and apt is that the politik exerted then was to be played out on numerous occasions, usually between self-promoting scholars and their respective academic establishments.

The intellectual shenanigans at Altamira bring me to one of the current debates (or battles) concerning shamanism and its role in rock art (see pp 92–6). The story begins in 1988 when South African archaeologists David Lewis-Williams and Thomas Dowson proposed the concept of cave art being produced by shamans following a trance-induced event. This concept was later taken up with vigour by Lewis-Williams and French rock art specialist Jean Clottes. Their stance upset a number of scholars and for more than twenty years or so the debate has raged on, with some quarters arguing virulently against this plausible concept. Despite the tactful rhetoric of Rosengren's text, one can see, albeit subtly (via a footnote), where he stands on this most contentious of subjects (see p 155 n 60).

Rosengren's book is one of only a handful of publications to have specifically focused on theory and is somewhat different to other rock art books that you might purchase in, say, a museum bookshop. It is radically stimulating and thought-provoking, and complements the recent publication by Bahn (Reference Bahn2010), albeit in a more unbiased way. It is refreshing to see a book such as this being written by someone who is not a rock art specialist but a philosopher, whose focus is on the mechanisms that arguably control, manipulate and produce rock art, rather than the rock art itself.

The second title, by Andrew Lawson, a nicely illustrated book on the Upper Palaeolithic cave art of Europe, is the most recent in a library of books dealing with this stimulating and sometimes controversial subject. It is more tightly focused than Rosengren's. The book is essentially divided into two sections: the first discusses the history, development and various theories pertaining to Upper Palaeolithic rock art; the second informs the reader with a useful site gazetteer.

The first part of the book charts the usual aspects of the subject, namely the history of discovery and scholarly development, the controversy associated with it, a very useful chronology which identifies the primary components that define style and tradition, a geographic distribution of sites and, finally, a discussion which questions the various approaches and interpretations.

Lawson quite rightly introduces the reader to the growth in interest of what was considered ‘Palaeolithic’. Prior to the initial discovery of painted art on cave walls, archaeologists and antiquarians had made significant discoveries throughout western Europe that included major lithic assemblages. Sometimes associated with this material was a limited but significant portable art assemblage comprising engraved bone, antler and ivory (termed ‘mobiliary art’). Discovering painted images on cave walls appears to have been the next step of discovery. Of particular interest is Lawson's account of the initial discovery of the painted frescos at Altamira in northern Spain, its rejection as a legitimate discovery and, later, its acceptance. Here, we read of the political tension and the power games between discoverer and verifier – issues that festered for more than thirty years – and the resulting posthumous apology by the so-called establishment, overlapping here with Rosengren's treatment of the same subject.

For those academics and students looking to expand beyond the usual gazetteer and the development of the archaeology surrounding cave art, Lawson provides a well-written interpretative account in Chapter 6 which deals with such issues as context, cosmology, semiotics and binary opposition. Although this section is useful, much of the grass-roots philosophical discourse is not supported, for example, by references to such works as Claude Lévi-Strauss's Structural Anthropology (Reference Lévi-Strauss1963) or the work of Tilley (Reference Tilley1991). Despite this minor point, the text in this section is ideal for those wishing to extract general answers without the jargon. Further useful discussion on current thinking is also presented within the Epilogue, where Lawson takes a personal voyage, covering such issues as gender, meaning, style and context.

Disappointingly, the section on the ‘British Isles’ (not Britain) is rather short and a more detailed account, even if negative, could have been given. Furthermore, and maybe this is a problem with the title of the book, Lawson devotes a few pages to describing the open-air rock of the Côa Valley in north-eastern Portugal – this is an essential addition in order fully to contextualise cave art elsewhere. However, as far as I am aware, there are no caves in that part of the country which contain painted or engraved Upper Palaeolithic art (although later, painted Schematic art is found there).

The book will appeal to a wide audience, offering a good overview and a gazetteer of many of the painted caves of Upper Palaeolithic Europe, including those that stand outside the Franco-Cantabrian region. The book is, in my view, a safe option to other recently published material on the subject, providing the reader with a much-needed balanced view of current research. A foreword by the respected researcher Jean Clottes plus an extensive and illuminating gazetteer, supported by a comprehensive bibliography, make this volume an attractive addition to the bookshelf. These two works, while sharing similar content, provide the reader with alternative approaches to disseminating an important aspect in the development of modern human history.