Figurative Construal in Prehistory: The Case of lion-man

Cultures emerged when prehistoric humans began to create imagined realities (i.e., realities that do not exist objectively) (Harari in Sapiens. A brief history of humankind. Vintage, 2015). These imagined realities are constituted by abstract concepts. As we know from conceptual metaphor theory (see, e.g., Kövecses in Metaphor. A practical introduction, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2010 [2002]; Lakoff and Johnson in Metaphors we live by. The University of Chicago Press, 1980), abstract concepts arise from more concrete concepts via figurative ways of conceptualization, such as metonymy, metaphor, and blending. With the help of the concrete concepts that denote physical reality, people around the world create a large variety of imagined realities, that is, cultures. The specific question I address in the paper is how we can explain the figurative processes that probably went on in the mind of one of the earliest artists who created the statue, or figurine, of Lion-man roughly 30,000 years ago. Using what I call “extended conceptual metaphor theory,” or “extended CMT,” for short (see Kövecses in Extended conceptual metaphor theory, Cambridge University Press, 2020), I attempt to map the figurative mechanisms that must have been present in the artist’s head and enabled the creation of the statue.