The Bradshaw Foundation provides an online learning resource. Its main areas of focus are archaeology, anthropology and genetic research, and its primary objective is to discover, document and preserve ancient rock art around the world, and promote the study of early mankind’s artistic achievements. The Foundation funds preservation projects around the world, scientific research and research publication. The Foundation carries out its work in collaboration with UNESCO, the Royal Geographic Society, the National Geographic Society, the Rock Art Research Institute in South Africa and the Trust for African Rock Art to ensure that the programs achieve maximum impact. It is a privately funded, non-profit organisation based in Geneva.
Robert A. Hefner III
President
In my experience Creativity is the key to Mankind’s success. I believe that one of our endeavours should be to try and capture the creativity of our ancestors for the enlightenment of our children. I would like to think that the Bradshaw Foundation is achieving this in part, and thus helping to preserve and protect the rich Heritage of Mankind that surrounds us.
Damon de Laszlo
Chairman
Since its formation in 1992 the Bradshaw Foundation has attempted to promote the study of early man’s artistic achievement, and help to preserve and protect this rich heritage found throughout the world. But by focussing on ancient rock art, the obvious questions of who, when and why became unavoidable. This led the Bradshaw Foundation into the study of genetic research, headed by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford University. The Foundation’s ‘Journey of Mankind’ Genetic Map has enabled us to look at the evolution of our ancestors in an holistic manner, so we no longer study one particular type of rock art, but attempt to speculate how that rock art came to be there, at a certain time, based on particular migratory events. Understanding a moment in time can only be truly achieved by gaining a grasp of what led to it, and what it led on to.
The Foundation has been actively involved in the preservation of rock art sites around the world, including the National Heritage Park of Campeche in Brazil, the Dabous giraffe carvings of the Tenere Desert in Niger, and the Calacala Gallery in Bolivia, and Niaux Cave in the French Pyrenees.
Our publications include 'Bradshaws: Ancient Rock Paintings of North-Western Australia' by Dr. Graham Walsh 1994, 'Rock Painting Sites in the Kimberley Region' by Katharina and Andreas Lommel 2001, and 'Ich reiste wie ein Buschmann' by Wilfried Schroder 2002.
With the Foundation's ever-expanding field of research, our latest project is the 'iLecture' documentary film series - a new venture that we hope enhances the way our material is viewed. It is a direct response to the changes both in technology and in education. Learning is changing; the digital brain, some argue, is physically different, it has rewired itself. And the solution to the expanding data-base placed before it, in our opinion, is to present information with 'ruthless clarity'. The iLectures documentary film format is a high-density, fact-driven, visual-audio experience.
Trustees
Trustee Dr Jean Clottes
Trustee Michael Ball
Trustee Michael McGuire
Editor Peter Robinson
Secretary Anna Coyle
Advisory Panel
Professor
Stephen Oppenheimer
Institute of Human Sciences, Oxford University
Dr Jill Cook
Curator of Prehistory, British Museum
Professor John P Miller
Center for Computational Biology, Montana State University, USA
Dr Ben Smith
Rock Art Research Institute (RARI),
South Africa
David Coulson
Trust for African Rock Art
Keler Lucas
Santa Catarina, Brazil
Dr Georgia Lee
Easter Island, Pacific
Valerie Feruglio
Art History
Hugh Brown
Australia
Professor Nabil Swelim
Egyptologist,
Egypt
In Memoriam
John Robinson
Co-Founder of the Bradshaw Foundation
4/5/1935 - 6/4/2007I
His passion for the knowledge and truth about mankind's artistic development and creativity was the driving force behind the Bradshaw Foundation, and was an inspiration to us all. Read more
November 6, 2004
Giles W Mead - Obituary
Bradshaw Foundation Trustee Giles W. Mead died February 13, 2003 at his ranch in Napa, California, USA. He was born and grew up in California, attended Stanford University, and was a Professor of Biology at Harvard University where he spent much of his life traveling the seas of the world studying the behavior and physiology of fish. He was a man of huge intellect – there was little that didn’t interest him -- a man who placed a sacred value on his friendships, and a man of great generosity to the Bradshaw Foundation and a myriad of other foundations and institutions interested in the natural sciences and environmental preservation.
Dr Andreas Lommel December 2004
In 1938 Doctor Andreas Lommel, a member of the Frobenius Institute, lived for several months in the Outback of north-west Australia in the Kimberley, with the Unambal tribe, with the aim of copying Aboriginal rock paintings. On his second expedition to the Kimberley in 1955, he was joined by his wife Katharina. The work - copies of the rock art and bark paintings - now resides at the Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde in Munich.
