Professors take up quest (From Penarth Times)

Professors take up quest

A BOOK about sorcerers and spirit healers in ancient Europe, written by two Penarth professors, will hit the bookshelves later this month.

Miranda and Stephen Aldhouse-Green, of Beech Lane, both professors at the University of Wales, Newport, have co-wrote the new book called The Quest for the Shaman, which will be published by Thames and Hudson on June 20.

Miranda is professor of archaeology and Stephen is professor of human origins.

The Quest for the Shaman shows how shamans - priests who people believed could influence good and evil spirits - were widespread in ancient Europe.

The word shaman is a Siberian Tungus word which means "the ecstatic one."

Stephen Aldhouse-Green said: "Working on the book was an emotionally engaging and exciting experience which we wanted to share with people.

"Previously I had mainly worked on much earlier periods, so it was exciting to work on peoples who are in many ways like us.

"Some 30,000 years ago we saw the birth of art and the start of complex burial practices.

"One of the greatest challenges for archaeologists is to understand the systems of belief people held. I would encourage people to read the book to find out how good our conclusions are."

The couple draw on recent archeological research in their quest to explain shamanism.

Their findings are borne out by 30,000-year-old lion-human ivory figurines found in south-western Germany, believed to represent monsters seen by shamans in altered states of consciousness.

They also document the Nebra sky-disc, also from Germany, that depicts the sun, moon and the Pleiades, and the "Doctor's Grave" from southeast England which suggests that a Late Iron Age chieftain was sent to the other world equipped with hallucinogenic drugs, medical kit and divining tools.

Miranda's main areas of interest are the ritual behaviour and practices of later prehistory, the Classical world and the early mythic literature of Ireland and Wales.