I’m writing this as a practical peer review of James B. Harrod’s recent monograph, which I’ll refer to as “Acheulian Mode II Art Religious Creativity” (2026 version). He repeatedly uses terms like “decoded” and “deciphered” for an Acheulian semiotic system, and builds a religious interpretation on top of “figuration” in handaxes.
I’ll be blunt: this is an annoying read — not because big ideas scare me, but because it repeatedly skips the hard science step: proving figuration and intent with constraints, controls, and a key that can be tested. Instead it jumps straight to religion — a claim with no facts, no hard evidence, and ultimately no way to prove it. Miss that first step and you can “decode” anything… including a bruise on a banana.
1) The 1988 “unpublished manuscript” problem: where is it?
Harrod repeatedly leans on “Harrod (1988)” as the foundation — he even labels the current monograph as an update of that earlier work, with version notes that include “v6 19 Nov 1988,” while still presenting this as a living, expanding project.
Acheulian_Mode_II_Art_Religious…
Fine. But here’s the problem:
I can’t find a traceable, archived copy of the claimed 1988 manuscript, not a scan, nothing on his website about it, not a library record, not even a stable citation trail (that reeks), not even a “here’s the original PDF.” Yet the entire rhetorical force of “I’ve been saying this for 35 years” depends on that missing document existing in verifiable form.
Acheulian_Mode_II_Art_Religious…
So I’m left with an unavoidable question:
If the 1988 manuscript is the foundation, why is it functionally uncheckable?
And yes, from my perspective, that raises a smell. Not “proof of fabrication,” but enough to justify suspicion and to demand transparency: produce it, prove an archive of it, or stop using it like a trump card, a card that thus far we cant even find an independent archive or citation of.
2) “Decoded” and “deciphered”… without a key
Harrod doesn’t just interpret. He uses language like:
“an Acheulian symbolic system is decoded”
“the Bilzingsleben semiotic system deciphered”
Acheulian_Mode_II_Art_Religious…
Decoded? Deciphered?
With what key?
A decipherment without a published key isn’t a decipherment, it’s an assertion with no demonstration.
What’s offered instead is a long, elaborate interpretive architecture (themes, motifs, meanings), including a table of proposed signs and “animacy themes,” and even a rhetorical reversal of burden (“if you object, substantiate the objection”).
No. That’s not how this works.
If you’re claiming “decoded system,” you publish:
the key (rules),
the constraints (how it can fail),
independent checks (blind scoring, replication, comparative finds and assemblages).
Otherwise you haven’t cracked the code, because you've not shown a key, the lock, or the opened door. (this is what I've been attempting for many years on my blog, demonstrations of the key, lock and open door)
And honestly? If anyone has put a “key” online in this area, it’s me, no I'm not responsible for every motif or combination, but huge breakthroughs and parts are demonstrably mine, archived and visible to all, with charts and a published methodology as an actual framework, not a poetic mood.
3) Before religion: prove you even have figuration
Harrod jumps from “figuration” to “art-religious behavior” with lines like “vague Elephant… head and trunk” — but how about a good elephant? You know: one that’s actually demonstrably sculptured, not something in some random noise that you can talk yourself into after two cups of coffee.
Then it gets upgraded to “ritual deposition… into spring waters” as part of some “multi-thematic art-religious performance.” Honestly, the only two-word combination that can be scientifically verified in that sentence is “spring waters.” Everything else is an interpretive costume.
That’s a ladder of leaps. Because the hard bit isn’t “religion.” The hard bit is the earlier rung:
Is it actually an intentional depiction at all?
Harrod hops over that chasm without even pausing to build a bridge. Why? Because the bridge is the hard science: methodology, constraints, design arguments, probability, pigments/residues, lab tests, typology/topology — the stuff you need before you’re allowed to say anything more than: “I can see a vague elephant.” and that matters immensely.
And when your scoring system includes categories like “Very Vague” and even “Divine,” you’ve baked subjectivity into the method. If “very vague” counts, then everything can count. And if everything can count, you can decode religion out of anything — including a bruise on a banana.
4) Even if it’s an elephant… it doesn’t automatically mean elephant worship
Let’s do the generous thing and say: yes, an Acheulian object depicts an elephant, some do.
That still doesn’t mean “elephant worship.”
“Depiction” could mean:
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observation
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storytelling
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teaching
- ornamentation
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“because it looks cool”
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“because elephants taste nice”
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LOOK THERE’S A FEKING ELEPHANT
Religion is not the default explanation. It’s a specific explanation that needs specific constraints to beat all the simpler alternatives.
Why call it religion at all?, when there’s a simpler, evidenced alternative hypothesis that I put on the table back in 2012. In some cases the genuinely sculptured images in some Palaeolithic flint tools have directional qualities — they can be animated to “read” like movement — which fits far better with practical or playful uses: a hunting aid, a teaching prop, or even the Stone Age equivalent of pushing a toy car around and making tracks in sand.
5) The missing citation / missing engagement problem
I don’t pretend to know every author in figurative lithics or “palaeoart.” I’m not claiming I invented the entire field.
But I am saying this:
I’ve been publicly displaying, since at least 2012, an assemblage-level body of work where I argue for recurring motifs, conventions, and a method for separating signal from rubbish — including the logic/probability angle, context, patina consistency, and the “stacking constraints” argument. My method is publicly linked and organised as a science hub.
So when someone in 2026 starts confidently dragging “elephantid head and trunk” on handaxes into the spotlight — and then builds “religious doctrine” on top — while showing no meaningful engagement with the publicly available methodological key… it looks less like scholarship and more like helping yourself to the headline while ignoring the scaffolding.