Bernie Taylor is an independent naturalist, thought leader and author whose research explores the mythological connections and biological knowledge among prehistoric, indigenous and ancient peoples. His works in these areas include Biological Time (2004) and Before Orion: Finding the Face of the Hero (2017). Before Orion is premised on Joseph’s Campbell’s hero's journey monomyth that is at the core of stories worldwide among indigenous peoples, the ancients, and our modern society. Before Orion explores a deeper root for this monomyth by looking at how hunter-gatherers viewed themselves within the natural and spiritual worlds through Palaeolithic cave art from 40,000 years ago. Taylor proposes that select cave paintings are fundamental pieces in the human journey to self-realization, the foundation of written language, and a record of biological knowledge that irrevocably impacted some of the artistic styles, religious practices, and stories that are still with us. Taylor addresses a profound archaeological elephant in the room by opening up an uncharted place in our history, which points to the cultural ancestors of mankind in western North Africa. Before Orion will change the idea of who you think you are.
For this episode we are moving away a little from the narrative approach to history that we usually follow. For this episode we will be turning to the realm of myth that we have only really covered in passing throughout the series. Though we will not be running through the usual stories of Greek Mythology, we will be instead looking to the deeper past where Greek civilisation has yet to appear. This will see us looking back some 10’s of thousands of years before the rise of Greek culture where stories that we find familiar in Greek mythology were also present. Bernie Taylor will take us back these tens of thousands of years to a cave site on the Iberian Peninsula, or modern-day Spain. In our talk, Bernie took me on a fascinating journey of his research and the ideas he has developed. I found this then turned into a great discussion and I hope you all enjoy this episode as much as I did engaging with Bernie. A lot of what we talk about is very visual and so I have provided a number of pictures on the episode page over at the Casting Through Ancient Greece website, while I have also provided Bernie Taylors links where you will be able to find even more resources. Any I hope you enjoy the next couple of hours.
Bernie Taylor Twitter @BernieTaylorOr
Before Orion Twitter @BeforeOrion
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