Our understanding of the human past is very limited. The mute evidence from excavation - the dusty pot shards, fragments of bone, slight variations in soil colour and texture - encourages abstraction and detachment. Reconstruction art offers a different way into the past, bringing archaeology to life and at times influencing and informing archaeologist's ideas. At its best it delivers something vivid, vital and memorable. Illustrating the Past explores the history of reconstruction art and archaeology. It looks at how attitudes have swung from the scientific and technical to a freer more imaginative way of seeing and back again. Through the exploration of seven artists' work, the reader is shown how the artist's way of seeing illustrates the past and sometimes how it has changed the way the past is seen. Illustrators working in archaeology are often anonymous and yet the picture that summarises an excavation can be the idea that endures. As well as drawing on her specialist knowledge, Judith Dobie uses conversation and correspondence to build a picture of how these artists' personalities, interests and backgrounds influences their art. Case studies featuring working sketches demonstrate how reconstruction artists deliver understanding and can change the interpretation of a site. This book celebrates and acknowledges reconstruction art within the field of archaeology.

Primitive art is inseparable from primitive consciousness and can be correctly understood only with the correct socio-cultural context. This book examines the ancient art of Siberia as part of the integral whole of ancient society.

Using the example of prehistoric paintings discovered in the late 19th century in Spain and France 'Cave Art, Perception and Knowledge' inquires into epistemic questions related to images, depicting and perception to which this rich material has given rise. The book traces the outline of the doxa of cave art studies.

The distinguished Russian archeologist Aleksei P. Okladnikov's study reveals how a field archeologist goes about determining and writing prehistory. Over the course of his career, Okladnikov and his wife Vera Zaporozhskaya travelled across Siberia from the Lena River in the north to the Amur River in the south excavating archaeological sites. During that time Aleksei and Vera found and interpreted the rock art of the vast region from the Paleolithic Era to the present day. Relying on petroglyphs and pictographs left on cliffs and boulders, Okladnikov lays out in detail and straightforward language the prehistory of Siberia by "reading" these artifacts. This book permits the past to be told in its own words: the art portrayed on the cliffs of Siberia.

The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals offers an in-depth exploration of the changing traditions of belief in pre-Bronze and Bronze Age North Asia. Esther Jacobson-Tepfer centers her argument on a female deity and her evolution up until the early Iron Age, across a 2,000 year period. Through the art historical and archaeological evidence of the symbolic systems left behind, she traces the progression of the deity from an originating animal mother through her incarnation as the mother of animals, her late embodiment as the guardian of the road to the land of the dead, the transformation of her essential liminality into the structures of predation and, in the form of a predated stag, her subsequent destruction. In detailed commentaries on rock art structures and monuments, Jacobson-Tepfer reconstructs and explores how the deity's power was embedded in the Janus-faced concept of life/death: how, in all her forms, the deity occupied the threshold between the worlds of humans and ancestors, humans and animals. More broadly, this study details how her fate was directly related to the sociological evolution at the onset of the Iron age: the transition of the cultures in South Siberia and Mongolia from hunting-based settlement to horse-dependent semi-nomadism, and with that the rise of a heroic narrative tradition. Jacobson-Tepfer has had unparalleled access to regional data still unavailable in the West, and the collection of this data in English as well as her extensive collection of color photographs and drawings will fill a gaping hole in the literature and prove invaluable to both archaeologists and art historians.The Hunter, the Stag, and the Mother of Animals will surely become a standard reference for both disciplines as well as a guide to those interested in rock art and beliefs systems more generally.

This volume of collected essays brings together for the first time the range of Winter's pioneering studies related to Neo-Assyrian relief sculpture and seals, Phoenician and Syrian ivory and bronze production, and inter-polity connections across the various cultures of first millennium B.C.E. from the Aegean to Iran. Consistent threads are an emphasis on the potential for art historical analysis to yield 'history' in the broadest sense; the importance of making the theoretical frame of interpretation explicit; and the necessity of textual evidence being brought to bear upon elements of formal analysis and archaeological context. "These beautifully produced volumes bring together essays written over a 35-year period, creating a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts...No library should be without this impressive collection." J.C. Exum

This unique guide provides an artistic and archaeological journey deep into human history, exploring the petroglyphic and pictographic forms of rock art produced by the earliest humans to contemporary peoples around the world. * Summarizes the diversity of views on ancient rock art from leading international scholars * Includes new discoveries and research, illustrated with over 160 images (including 30 color plates) from major rock art sites around the world * Examines key work of noted authorities (e.g. Lewis-Williams, Conkey, Whitley and Clottes), and outlines new directions for rock art research * Is broadly international in scope, identifying rock art from North and South America, Australia, the Pacific, Africa, India, Siberia and Europe * Represents new approaches in the archaeological study of rock art, exploring issues that include gender, shamanism, landscape, identity, indigeneity, heritage and tourism, as well as technological and methodological advances in rock art analyses

As the most important ancient cultural relics in prehistory, rock art have become a direct basis for the reproduction of human history and ideological process. Since the late 1970s, Yinshan rock art have been found in large quantities. In this study, 2842 Yinshan rock art are collected, sorted and classified systematically. The distribution characteristics of rock art in each area and the distribution and change rules of main rock art types are summarized. This book also places Yinshan rock art into the overall framework of Chinese rock art for analysis in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the overall characteristics and status of Yinshan rock art, and showcases researches on the chronology are.

This is the only specifically designed key to the interpretation of American rock art. The Field Guide brings together 600 commentaries on specific symbols by over 100 archaeologists, researchers, and Native American informants. Covers the northern states of Mexico to Utah and from California to Colorado.

Anton van Wouw (1862–1945) is probably the most prominent sculptor of his generation and is regarded as the father of South African sculpture. Though mostly revered for his monumental works, it is through his smaller works that Van Wouw reached true heights of sculptural expression. Apart from their their inherent value as treasured works of art, these smaller works also give a historical perspective on the socio-economic and cultural circumstances of South Africa during Van Wouw's lifetime. In this detailed research work, A.E. Duffey provides an authoratative overview of the life and work of a most intriguing figure.

Along the Atlantic seaboard, from Scotland to Spain, are numerous rock carvings made four to five thousand years ago, whose interpretation poses a major challenge to the archaeologist.
Richard Bradley discusses the cultural settings of the rock carvings, the ways in which they can be interpreted in relation to ancient land use, the creation of ritual monuments and the burial of the dead. Integrating this fascinating yet little-known material into the mainstream of prehistoric studies, IRock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe demonstrates that these carvings played a fundamental role inthe organization of the prehistoric landscape.

Along the Atlantic seaboard, from Scotland to Spain, are numerous rock carvings made four to five thousand years ago, whose interpretation poses a major challenge to the archaeologist.
In the first full-length treatment of the subject, based largely on new fieldwork, Richard Bradley argues that these carvings should be interpreted as a series of symbolic messages that are shared between monuments, artefacts and natural places in the landscape. He discusses the cultural setting of the rock carvings and the ways in which they can be interpreted in relation to ancient land use, the creation of ritual monuments and the burial of the dead. Integrating this fascinating yet little-known material into the mainstream of prehistoric studies, Richard Bradley demonstrates that these carvings played a fundamental role in the organization of the prehistoric landscape.

In Breaking the Surface, Doug Bailey offers a radical alternative for understanding Neolithic houses, providing much-needed insight not just into prehistoric practice, but into another way of doing archaeology. Using his years of fieldwork experience excavating the early Neolithic pit-houses of southeastern Europe, Bailey exposes and elucidates a previously under-theorized aspect of prehistoric pit construction: the actions and consequences of digging defined as breaking the surface of the ground. Breaking the Surface works through the consequences of this redefinition in order to redirect scholarship on the excavation and interpretation of pit-houses in Neolithic Europe, offering detailed critiques of current interpretations of these earliest European architectural constructions. The work of the book is performed by juxtaposing richly detailed discussions of archaeological sites (Etton and The Wilsford Shaft in the UK, and Magura in Romania), with the work of three artists-who-cut (Ron Athey, Gordon Matta-Clark, Lucio Fontana), with deep and detailed examinations of the philosophy of holes, the perceptual psychology of shapes, and the linguistic anthropology of cutting and breaking words, as well as with cultural diversity in framing spatial reference and through an examination of pre-modern ungrounded ways of living. Breaking the Surface is as much a creative act on its own - in its mixture of work from disparate periods and regions, its use of radical text interruption, and its juxtaposition of text and imagery - as it is an interpretive statement about prehistoric architecture. Unflinching and exhilarating, it is a major development in the growing subdiscipline of art/archaeology.

Painted Caves, a beautifully illustrated introduction to the oldest art of Western Europe, charts the historical background to the acceptance of a Palaeolithic age for the very ancient paintings found in caves. Offering an up-to-date overview of the geographical distribution of the sites found in southern France and the Iberian Peninsula, and examples known in Britain, Italy, Romania, and Russia, Lawson's expert study is not restricted to the art in caves, but places this art alongside the engravings and sculptures found both on portable objects and on rock faces in the open air. Written from an archaeological perspective, the volume stresses how the individual images cannot be considered in isolation, but should rather be related to their location and other evidence that might provide clues to their significance. Although many scholars have put forward ideas as to the meaning and function of the art, Lawson discusses some of the substantive theories and offers glimpses of his own experience in the field and enduring fascination for the subject.

In order to foster dialogue among various subfields, contributors are drawn from a wide range of domains. Classical archaeology, Aegean prehistory, Near Eastern archaeology, Egyptology, Pre-Columbian South America, and North America are brought together to explore ancient art from multiscalar perspectives and through the lenses of entanglement theory, network thinking, assemblage theory and other recent theoretical developments. Representing a new wave in research on ancient art, considering both the proximal and distributed operations of artworks, Ancient Art Revisited provides broad and inclusive coverage of ancient art and offers a cohesive approach to a fragmented area of study. This book will be suitable for archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians wishing to understand the latest thinking on ancient art.

Taking a fresh look at the poetry and visual art of the Hellenistic age, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. to the Romans' defeat of Cleopatra in 30 B.C., Graham Zanker makes enlightening discoveries about the assumptions and conventions of Hellenistic poets and artists and their audiences.
Zanker's exciting new interpretations closely compare poetry and art for the light each sheds on the other. He finds, for example, an exuberant expansion of subject matter in the Hellenistic periods in both literature and art, as styles and iconographic traditions reserved for grander concepts in earlier eras were applied to themes, motifs, and subjects that were emphatically less grand.

Museum science, museum analysis, museum history, and museum theory all of these composite designations have come into our parlance in recent years. Above all, this expanding terminology underscores the growing scholarly interest in museums. In this new scholarship, a recurring assertion is that as an institution, the museum has largely functioned as a venue for the formation of specifically national identities. This volume, by contrast, highlights the museum as a product of transnational processes of exchange, focusing on the period from ca. 1750 to 1940."

The magnificent prehistoric art discovered in caves throughout France and Spain raises many questions about early human culture. What do these superbly rendered paintings of horses, bison, and enigmatic human figures and symbols mean? How can we explain the sudden flourishing of artistic creativity at such a high level? And in what ways does this artwork reflect the underlying belief system, worldview, and life of the people who created it? In this fascinating discussion of ancient art and religion, Dr. David S. Whitley—one of the world's leading experts on cave paintings—guides the reader in an exploration of these intriguing questions, while sharing his firsthand experiences in visiting these exquisite, breathtaking sites. To grasp what drove these ancient artists to create these masterpieces, and to understand the origin of myth and religion, as Whitley explains, is to appreciate what makes us human. Moreover, he broadens our understanding of the genesis of creativity and myth by proposing a radically new and original theory that weds two seemingly warring camps from separate disciplines. On the one hand, archaeologists specializing in prehistoric cave paintings have argued that the visionary rituals of shamans led to the creation of this expressive art. They consider shamanism to be the earliest known form of religion. By contrast, evolutionary psychologists view the emergence of religious beliefs as a normal expression of the human mind. In their eyes, the wild and ecstatic trances of shamans were a form of aberrant behavior. Far from being typical representatives of ancient religion, shamans were exceptions to the normal rule of early religion. Whitley resolves the controversy by interweaving the archaeological evidence with the latest findings of cutting-edge neuroscience. He thereby rewrites our understanding of shamanism and its connection with artistic creativity, myth, and religion. Combining a colorful narrative describing Whitley's personal explorations at key archaeological sites with robust scientific research, Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit makes for engrossing reading. It provides a profound and poignant perspective on what it means to be human.

The Art of Elam CA. 4200-525 BC offers a view of, and a critical reflection on, the art history of one of the world's first and least-known civilizations, illuminating a significant chapter of our human past. Not unlike a gallery of historical paintings, this comprehensive treatment of the rich heritage of ancient Iran showcases a visual trail of the evolution of human society, with all its leaps and turns, from its origins in the earliest villages of southwest Iran at around 4200 BC to the rise of the Achaemenid Persian empire in CA. 525 BC. Richly illustrated with 1,450 photographs, 190 line drawings, and digital reconstructions of hundreds of artefacts-some of which have never before been published-The Art of Elam goes beyond formal and thematic boundaries to emphasize the religious, political, and social contexts in which art was created and functioned. Such a magisterial study of Elamite art has never been written, making The Art of Elam CA. 4200-525 BC a ground-breaking publication essential to all students of ancient art and to our current understanding of the civilizations of the ancient Near East.

Where do we find the world's very first art? When, and why, did people begin experimenting with different materials, forms and colours? Were our once-cousins, the Neanderthals, also capable of creating art? Prehistorians have been asking these questions of our ancestors for decades, but only very recently, with the development of cutting-edge scientific and archaeological techniques, have we been able to piece together the first chapter in the story of art. Overturning the traditional Eurocentric vision of our artistic origins, which has focused almost exclusively on the Franco-Spanish cave art, Paul Bahn and Michel Lorblanchet take the reader on a search for the earliest art across the whole world. They show that our earliest ancestors were far from being the creatively impoverished primitives of past accounts, and Europe was by no means the only 'cradle' of art; the artistic impulse developed in the human mind wherever it travelled. The long universal history of art mirrors the development of humanity.