As a Christian theologian interested in human origins, the origin of religion, and the controversial issue of human ‘uniqueness’, I have been increasingly drawn to the contributions of paleoanthropologists and archeologists to this challenging problem. In my recent Gifford Lectures I have been deeply involved in trying to construct plausible ways for theology to enter into this important interdisciplinary conversation (cf. van Huyssteen 2006: forthcoming). As a way of facilitating this kind of cross-disciplinary dialogue I have argued for a postfoundationalist approach to interdisciplinary dialogue, which implies three important moves for theological reflection. First, as theologians we should acknowledge the radical contextuality of all our intellectual work, the epistemically crucial role of interpreted experience, and the way that disciplinary traditions shape the values that inform our reflection about God and what we believe to be God’s presence in the world. Second, a postfoundationalist notion of rationality should open our eyes to an epistemic obligation that points beyond the boundaries of our own discipline, our local communities, groups, or cultures, toward plausible forms of interdisciplinary dialogue (cf. van Huyssteen1999). Against this background I have argued for distinct and important differences between reasoning strategies used by theologians and scientists. I have also, argued, however, that some important shared rational resources may actually be identified for these very different cognitive domains of our mental lives (cf. van Huyssteen 2006, forthcoming). Thirdly, it is precisely these shared rational resources that enable interdisciplinary dialogue, and are expressed most clearly by the notion of transversal rationality. In the dialogue between theology and other disciplines, transversal reasoning promotes different but equally legitimate ways of viewing specific topics, problems, traditions, or disciplines, and creates the kind of space where different voices need not always be in contradiction, or in danger of assimilating one another, but are in fact dynamically interactive with one another. This notion of transversality thus provides a philosophical window to our wider world of communication through thought and action (cf. Schrag 1992:148ff.; Welsch 1996:764ff.), and teaches us to respect the disciplinary integrity of reasoning strategies as different as theology and the sciences.¹

This way of thinking is always concrete, local, and contextual, but at the same time reaches beyond local contexts to transdisciplinary concerns. The overriding concern here is as follows: while we always come to our interpersonal and cross-disciplinary conversations with strong personal beliefs, commitments and even prejudices, a postfoundationalist approach enables us to realize that, in spite of our radically different reasoning strategies, there is also much that we share in terms of our rational resources. An interdisciplinary approach, carefully thought through, can help us to identify these shared resources in different modes of knowledge so as to reach beyond the boundaries of our own traditional disciplines in cross-contextual, cross-disciplinary conversation. It can also enable us to identify possible shared conceptual problems as we negotiate the porous boundaries of our different disciplines.

One such shared interdisciplinary problem is the concern for human uniqueness, and how that may, or may not, relate to human origins and the evolution of religious awareness. It is, therefore, precisely in the problem of ‘human uniqueness’ that theology and the sciences may find a shared research trajectory. Our very human capacity (or mania?) for self-definition can most probably be seen as one of the ‘crowning achievements’ of our species. As we all know today, however, no one trait or accomplishment should ever be taken as the single defining characteristic of what it means to be human. Morever, what we see as our humanness, or even our distinct human ‘uniqueness’, ultimately implies a deeply moral choice: we are not just biological creatures, but as cultural creatures we have the remarkable but dangerous ability to determine whom we are going to include, or not, as part of ‘us’(cf. Proctor 2003:228f.). Talking about human uniqueness in reasoning strategies as different as theology and the sciences, therefore, will always have a crucially important moral dimension. We do seem to have a profound moral responsibility when defining ourselves, for naming ourselves always assumes a specific kind of reality that gives shape to the worlds we create and experience. It is also important to ask, however, how reasonable (or not) it might be for a theologian, after immersing him/herself in the challenging contemporary debates in paleoanthropology and archeology, to expect scientists to provide a starting point, or important links, for an interdisciplinary discussion of issues like human origins, human nature, human uniqueness, and even human destiny. And last but not least: how realistic is it for a Christian theologian to expect scientists to take theological contributions to these crucially important topics seriously?

An interesting part of our self-perception is that it is often the less material aspects of the history of our species that fascinates us most in the evolution of modern humans. We seem to grasp at an intuitive level that issues like language, self-awareness, consciousness, moral awareness, symbolic behavior and mythology, are probably the defining elements that really make us human (cf. Lewin 1993:4). Yet exactly these elements that most suggest humanness are often the least visible in the prehistoric record. For this reason paleoanthropologists correctly have focused on more indirect, but equally plausible material pointers to the presence of the symbolic human mind in early human prehistory. Arguably the most spectacular of the earliest evidences of symbolic behaviour in humans are the paleolithic cave paintings in South West France and the Basque Country, painted toward the end of the last Ice Age. The haunting beauty of these prehistoric images, and the creative cultural explosion that they represent, should indeed fascinate any theologian interested in human origins.

At first blush there does in fact seem to be a rather remarkable convergence between the evolutionary emergence of Homo sapiens, and Christian beliefs in the origins of the human creature (cf. García-Rivera 2003:9). In a sense the famous ‘cultural explosion’ of the Upper-Paleolithic, although in no sense the ‘beginning of a new species’, does exemplify the most distinctive traits of our species much as the creation myths of the Abrahamic religions refer to the arrival of a new species, created in the ‘image of God’². But easy comparisons stop here, for in the classic religious texts of the ancient Near East the ‘primal human being’ is seen as the significant forerunner of humanity, and as such defines the emerging relationship between humanity and the deity. The theologian, therefore, needs to be aware that the Genesis 1 texts are meant as clear expressions of the uniqueness of the primal human being, who occupies a position between the deity and humanity, and who is the only one who can lay claim to this distinction (cf. Callender 2000:206f.). Theologically, then, being created ‘in the image of God’ highlights the extraordinary importance of human beings: human beings are in fact walking representations of God, and as such of exquisite value and importance (cf. Towner 2001:26), a tradition that has been augmented centuries later by a very specific focus on the rational abilities and moral awareness of humans.

Over against two thousand years of complex conceptual evolution in the history of ideas of theological thought, the prehistoric treasures from the Upper-Paleolithic today seem to have become almost impossible to interpret, their ‘true meaning’ so elusive that it is virtually impossible to recreate any ‘original’ context of meaning in which they were first created. Yet we join paleoanthropologists in sensing that these products of ancient imagery may hold the key to what it means to be human, which for theology may significantly broaden and enrich what is meant today by ‘human uniqueness’, especially if we shift our focus of inquiry to accommodate more contextual and particularist interpretations.

For a theologian like myself, interested in interdisciplinary dialogue, precisely arguments for more local and contextual interpretations of paleolithic art are especially intriguing, and it is these more contextual approaches that will resonate with my own postfoundationalist approach to interdisciplinary discourse. A more contextual, local approach would imply that, rather than asking what the enduring meaning of these images may be, we should rather try to understand what made them meaningful for our early modern ancestors (cf. Conkey 1997:343ff.). What is undoubtedly clear is that a full century of the study of Paleolithic art has not produced any definite or final theory about this ‘art’, but rather has brought forth a number of truly conflicting claims. As a serious advocate of a radically contextual approach to interpreting paleolithic imagery, Margaret W. Conkey has warned against too glibly calling Upper-Paleolithic image-making ‘art’, since this superimposes a contemporary Western aesthetic perspective onto our evaluation of these mysterious images. For this reason Conkey and Soffer have recently suggested that our understanding of prehistoric imagery will be greatly advanced if we can manage to decouple this body of archeological evidence about past lifeways from its categorization as ‘art’ (cf. Soffer and Conkey 1997:1f.). These scientists believe that precisely the understanding of this material as ‘art,’ based on unwarranted Western aesthetic assumptions, has greatly constrained our subsequent understanding of the subject matter. For this reason they propose to term this corpus of paleolithic data as prehistoric imagery and, when using the term, put ‘art’ in quotation marks.

This growing, and typically postfoundationalist, dissatisfaction with past approaches to prehistoric imagery should be seen as a direct result of prior insufficient attention to the concrete time and places when the images were actually produced and used, and Soffer and Conkey’s views, therefore, embody a strong reaction against unwarranted uniformitarian assumptions and broad ahistoric, abstract, and often decontexualized frames of reference (cf. Soffer and Conkey 1997:1f.). For Soffer and Conkey there are various problematic assumptions at work behind the generally used term ‘art’ for prehistoric images. As defined in the past century, art is a cultural phenomenon that is assumed to f