Beyond Art: Pleistocene Image and Symbol

Beyond Art: Pleistocene Image and Symbol

Beyond Art: Pleistocene Image and Symbol.
Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, No. 23.
Conkey, M.W., Soffer, O., Stratmann, D. and Jablonski, N.G., eds. 1997.

The last quarter of the twentieth century saw myriad new theoretical and technological developments applicable to the field of anthropology. Among other applications, these developments have made possible new investigations of the ages, raw materials and environmental contexts of Pleistocene images and have brought into question our conception of them as "art."

Beyond Art: Pleistocene Image and Symbol combines the proceedings of two anthropological conferences: the 1993 First Oregon Archaeological Retreat and the 1995 Wattis Symposium on Pleistocene imagery and symbolism. The result is a volume which brings diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to bear on a significant issue in anthropology.

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378 pages. Hard cover $40.


CONTRIBUTORS

Ofer Bar-Yosef
Jean Clottes
Margaret W. Conkey
Iain Davidson
J.D. Lewis-Williams
Anthony Manhire
Alexander Marshack
Manuel R. González Morales
Margherita Mussi
John Parkington
Andrée Rosenfeld
Olga Soffer
Silvia Tomásková
Alan Watchman
Randall White
Daniela Zampetti


CONTENTS

Studying Ancient Visual Cultures
Olga Soffer and Margaret W. Conkey

Section I. Analytical Methods: From Dating to Technologies of Image Making

Paleolithic Marks: Archaeometric Perspectives
Alan Watchman

New Laboratory Techniques and Their Impact on Paleolithic Cave Art
Jean Clottes

Paleolithic Image Making and Symboling in Europe and the Middle East: A Comparative Review
Alexander Marshack

Substantial Acts: From Materials to Meaning in Upper Paleolithic Representation
Randall White

Section II. Approaches to the "Why's" of Presence and Absence

The Power of Pictures
Iain Davidson

Symbolic Expressions in Later Prehistory of the Levant: Why are They So Few?
Ofer Bar-Yosef

When the Beasts Go Marchin' Out! The End of the Pleistocene Art in Cantabrian, Spain
Manuel R. González Morale

Section III. Interpreting Regional Imagery in the European Upper Paleolithic

Art of the Light and Art of the Depths
Jean Clottes

Carving, Painting, Engraving: Problems with the Earliest Italian Design
Margherita Mussi and Daniela Zampetti

The Mutability of Upper Paleolithic Art in Central and Eastern Europe: Patterning and Significance
Olga Soffer

Section IV. The Interpretive Process

Places of Art: Art and Archaeology in Context
Silvia Tomásková

Archaeological Signatures of the Social Context of Rock Art Reproduction
Andrée Rosenfeld

Processions and Groups: Human Figures, Ritual Occasions and Social Categories in the Rock Paintings of the Western Cape, South Africa
John Parkington and Anthony Manhire

Harnessing the Brain: Vision and Shamanism in Upper Paleolithic Western Europe
J.D. Lewis-Williams

Beyond Art and Between the Caves: Thinking About Context in the Interpretive Process
Margaret W. Conkey

 

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