TY - GEN ID - cogprints1744 UR - http://cogprints.org/1744/ A1 - Humphrey, Nicholas Y1 - 1998/12// N2 - The emergence of cave art in Europe about 30,000 years ago is widely believed to be evidence that by this time human beings had developed sophisticated capacities for symbolization and communication. However, comparison of the cave art with the drawings made by a young autistic girl, Nadia, reveals surprising similarities in content and style. Nadia, despite her graphic skills, was mentally defective and had virtually no language. I argue in the light of this comparison that the existence of the cave art cannot be the proof which it is usually assumed to be that the humans of the Upper Palaeolithic had essentially 'modern' minds. KW - cave art KW - autism KW - artistic savants KW - human evolution KW - language evolution KW - children's drawings KW - modularity TI - Cave Art, Autism, and the Evolution of the Human Mind SP - 165 AV - public EP - 191 ER -