Cave Art, the Primal Hero and the Origins of Mythology | Bernie Taylor, Finding the Face of the Hero

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Bernie Taylor spent years identifying previously unrecognized animals in 40,000-year-old cave paintings, and argues that a complete hero's journey encoded in Paleolithic art became the blueprint for every human mythology that followed. His book Before Orion lays out his case.

Covers Bernie's case for pareidolia as the evolutionary origin of religion and all human mythology, the Paleolithic cave art hero's journey he sees as the original template for Hercules, Orion, and Perseus, his view that constellations began as pareidolia found in mountain rock faces before being mapped to the night sky, Jebel Toubkal as the real Mount Atlas and origin of the Atlantis myth, and cave art he says links Iberian Spain to South Africa 36,000 years ago as evidence of prehistoric global connectivity.

ChaptersInside the full 2h 11m episode25 chapters

0:00Welcome and Introducing Bernie Taylor's Before Orion

4:22From Animal Timing to a Discovery in Spain

11:32Abraham, Monotheism and Animals Following the Sky

15:31Paradolia: The One Cognitive Ability That Made Us Human and Created Religion

20:42Three Realms: Cave, Mountain and Night Sky

26:04Bernie's Paleolithic Hero and His Female Animal Teachers

34:33Bernie's Three Sources for the Greek Constellations

41:06Therianthropes and Modern Superheroes: A 40,000-Year-Old Tradition

48:27The Atlas Mountain Is Real: Jebel Toubkal and the True Origin of Atlantis

51:44Constellations Came From Rock Faces, Not the Sky: The Paradolia Origin of Astronomy

1:03:14Welcome Back and the Academic Reception Question

1:05:10Posters, Social Media and Flipping the Conferences

1:10:17Fighting Back When Academics Copy Your Work

1:14:25Counting Lunations From the Vernal Equinox

1:17:17How Salmon Time Their Migration by Darkness

1:19:05Tribal Elders in Tears Over Lost Calendars

1:22:10The Masai Giraffe That Was Right All Along

1:24:44Jebel Toubkal as the Birthplace of Astronomy

1:32:45Caves as the First Churches and Initiation Chambers

1:36:04The Cosmic Egg Behind the Big Bang

1:41:10Cave Art and the Origin of Alphabets

1:46:36Bartering With Fingers in Beijing Markets

1:50:01Tifinagh, the Oldest Written Language

1:53:14Your DNA Traces Back to West North Africa

1:58:52Why Stop at Thirty Six Thousand Years

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Naturalist and archaeoastronomer

Bernie Taylor is a naturalist, author, and cultural astronomer whose book "Before Orion" traces how Paleolithic cave art encoded the origins of mythology, constellations, and the hero's journey.

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Website beforeorion.com