âIf you love mysteries, youâll love this book. Genevieve von Petzinger acts as guide and sleuth in this fascinating, accessible, and fast-paced exploration of Ice Age artists and the evocative cave paintings they left behindâ (Virginia Morell, author of Animal Wise and Ancestral Passions).
In an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones, archeologist von Petzinger explores the little-known geometric cave art of our ancient ancestorsâperhaps the first form of human written communication and a key to unlocking some of the mysteries of our ancient past. These âremarkableâ (Jean Auel, author of the bestselling Earthâs Children series) findings âmay represent one of the most extraordinary scientific insights of our timeâ (Wade Davis, author of The Serpent and the Rainbow).
Join von Petzinger as she travels throughout Europe and attempts to crack the code of these strange symbols, which persisted virtually unchanged for some 30,000 years. Clearly meaningful to their creators, these geometric signs are one of the first indicators of our human ancestorsâ intelligence and capacity for symbolic meaning and languageâglimpses across millennia of an ancient consciousness linked to our own.
Part travel journal, part popular science, and part personal narrative, this groundbreaking investigation explores what makes us human, how we evolved as a species, and how this cave art laid the foundation for so much of the technology that we enjoy today.