Members of the Department of Ethnology FF UK Barbora Půtová and Václav Soukup edited a highly presentable international collective monograph The Genesis of Creativity and the Origin of the Human Mind (Karolinum Press, 2015). The book presents studies by prominent foreign paleoanthropologists, anthropologists and archaeologists specialising in human evolution, culture and art such as Ian Tattersall, Harald Floss, Dave Whitley, Augustin F. C. Holl, Jean Clottes or Emmanuel Anati.
The objective of the monograph is to describe, analyse and interpret the genesis of artistic creativity and constitution of the mind of anatomically modern man. The book also presents different dimensions of human creativity heading from proto-art towards art. Attention is also dedicated to the genesis of art in the Upper Palaeolithic and demonstrations of artistic activity in preliterate societies and tribe cultures, still living for instance in Australia or Southern Africa.
The book is the product of cooperation between Czech and foreign institutions such as the British Museum, London; Moravské zemské muzeum Brno; Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil; Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Paris; Museo de Altamira, Santillana del Mar; Museu do Côa, Vila Nova de Foz Côa or Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna. The book includes photographs of prehistoric artefacts and pictures referred to as paleoart: these are drawings and John Sibbick (UK) and Petr Modlitba and Libor Balák (Czech Republic), artists who reconstruct in their works the prehistoric world.
