The Dead Man Shaft, Lascaux

According to one hypothesis, paintings of animals and geometric forms in paleolithic caves are representations of ecstatic visions brought about by shamanistic practices. The painting in the Shaft of the dead man is exceptional; one proposed possibility is that it is a portrait of a shaman having a vision. Furthermore, and if it is an auto-portrait, we might have the first evidence of auto-recursive thinking in the paleolithic; not a representation of a man having a vision but a man representing himself having a vision.