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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > Art styles not limited by date > Art of indigenous peoples
Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been
that a 'cognitive revolution' (C.50,000 years ago) led to the
advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution
our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic
Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern
humans. Or so we thought. As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest
advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding
between Modern Humans and the Neanderthals. All non-Africans today
carry some Neanderthal genes. We have also discovered aspects of
Neanderthal behaviour that indicate that they were not cognitively
inferior to modern humans, as we once thought, and in fact had
their own rituals and art. Finlayson, who is at the forefront of
this research, recounts the discoveries of his team, providing
evidence that Neanderthals caught birds of prey, and used their
feathers for symbolic purposes. There is also evidence that
Neanderthals practised other forms of art, as the recently
discovered engravings in Gorham's Cave Gibraltar indicate. Linking
all the recent evidence, The Smart Neanderthal casts a new light on
the Neanderthals and the 'Cognitive Revolution'. Finlayson argues
that there was no revolution and, instead, modern behaviour arose
gradually and independently among different populations of Modern
Humans and Neanderthals. Some practices were even adopted by Modern
Humans from the Neanderthals. Finlayson overturns classic
narratives of human origins, and raises important questions about
who we really are.
Kachinas are supernatural beings from Indian religion and this
selected bibliography lists over 100 references to magazine
articles and books with information about them. Kachinas are often
represented in carved and painted Indian dolls. The book contains
an essay that explains the various aspects and meanings of the
Kachina in Indian life and gives historical and philosophical
background information. Eight full-page black and white drawings by
New Mexico artist, Glen Strock, illustrate the text. Collectors
will find this book invaluable and for the general reader it offers
an introduction to a popular Indian art form and mythological
figure.
Claude Levi-Strauss's fascination with Northwest Coast Indian art
dates back to the late 1930s. "Sometime before the outbreak of the
Second World War," he writes, "I had already bought in Paris a
Haida slate panel pipe." In New York in the early forties, he
shared his enthusiasm with a group of Surrealist refugee artists
with whom he was associated. "Surely it will not be long," he wrote
in an article published in 1943, "before we see the collections
from this part of the world moved from ethnographic to fine arts
museums to take their just place amidst the antiquities of Egypt of
Persia and the works of medieval Europe. For this art is not
unequal to the greatest, and, in the course of the century and a
half of its history that is known to us, it has shown evidence of a
superior diversity and has demonstrated apparently inexhaustible
talents for renewal." In The Way of the Masks, first published more
than thirty years later, he returned to this material, seeking to
unravel a persistent problem that he associated with a particular
mask, the Swaihwe, which is found among certain tribes of coastal
British Columbia. This book, now available for the first time in an
English translation, is a vivid, audacious illustration of
Levi-Strauss's provocative structural approach to tribal art and
culture. Bringing to bear on the Swaihwe masks his theory that
mythical representations cannot be understood as isolated objects,
Levi-Strausss began to look for links among them, as well as
relationships between these and other types of masks and myths,
treating them all as parts of a dialogue that has been going on for
generations among neighboring tribes. The wider system that emerges
form his investigation uncovers the association of the masks with
Northwest coppers and with hereditary status and wealth, and takes
the reader as far north as the Dene of Alaska, as far south as the
Yurok of northern California, and as far away in time and space as
medieval Europe. As one reader said of this book, "It will be
controversial, as his work always is, and it will stimulate more
scholarship on the Northwest Coast than any other single book that
I can think of."
This volume is a basic introduction to rock art studies. It marks
the starting point of the new methodology for rock art analysis,
based on typology and style, first developed by the author at the
Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici. This book demonstrates the
beginnings of a new discipline, the systematic study of world rock
art. This edition is a revised and updated version of Anarti’s
classic text, first published in English in 1993. Additions have
been made and a major new category of rock art has been included.
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