Two of my favorite authors, and favorite Philips, have new articles out.

Philip Gardiner has a new article out at Book of THoTH which traces the evolution of societies and marketplaces from the time of nomads until we reached the, unhealthy, stage of economic based society. In it he makes some interesting connections between our pre-societal roots to our current situation, and explains step-by-step how we got here.

Philip Coppens has a great article, with tremendous pictures, on a subject that I was almost totally unaware of. His article on Tassili n'Ajjer, the "largest storehouse of rock paintings in the world”, takes a close look at the area and attempts to connect it to Egypt as the birthplace of ancient Egypt. Having been lucky enough to travel to the area himself, Philip has some really great pictures of some amazing rock art, and weaves an interesting tale that seems to possibly tie the pre-Pharaonic Egyptians to the area. He also denounces Erich Von Däniken's idea that many of the figures shown are evidence of ancient astronauts, and makes a convincing case for the use of hallucinogens in the art work.

This is a subject that I'll probably give more time to here in the future. Much like many of the people who think about such topics, I believe that neither the ancient astronaut theory nor the hallucinogenic vision theory explains the entire phenomenon, although I believe that each of them have their place in the discussion. I do believe that there are some instances where both seem to very adequately explain a local phenomenon, and I also believe that there are cases where each fail miserably. Much like what Mac Tonnies said in a recent post, reconciling the visionary and the physical has gnawed at me for a long time. Is it two, distinct, phenomena? Or two sides of the same coin?