This book is an analysis of a collection of artefacts from the Neolithic period of the southern Levant. Although they have traditionally been identified as human images, the relationship of some of them to naturalistic human anatomy is tenuous, and, drawing on comparative examples from other periods and locations, Estelle Orrelle interprets them as images of Gods. Situating the artefacts in the context of the Neolithic transition, she shows how a Darwinian symbolic origins theory can explain the emergence of this iconography; that it lies in ancient sexual selection strategies, as power relations changed from an original social contract underpinned by female ritual power, to a new social contract driven by competing male elites."

From 1997 to 2004, we executed Photographic VR shooting of Palaeolithic cave paintings in 23 major caves and about 150 Mobile Arts in 5 museums in Northern Spain as a co-project between the University of Cantabria, Spain and Texnai, Inc., Japan and the result was published in Spanish and English in 2003 by GOBIERNO de CANTABRIA as "ARTE PALEOLITICO EN LA REGION CANTABRICA, PALAEOLITHIC ARTS IN NORTHERN SPAIN" with a DVD ROM of the image database. This book is published based on these book and database in POD(Publishing On Demand) format. For this publishing, the images of cave paintings and mobile arts are scheduled to be published as the catalog editions in POD so that readers are able to see those images without PC.
And on June 15, 2012, an extremely interesting report on the cave paintings of Northern Spain was published in Science. The report was written by Prof. Alistair Pike of University of Bristol, UK and his colleagues and it was reported that Uranium-series disequilibrium dating was executed that year for calcite deposits overlying art found in 11 caves in Northern Spain and the results demonstrated that some paintings of El Castillo extended back at least to the Early Aurignacian period, with minimum ages of 40.8 thousand years for a red disk, 37.3 thousand years for a negative hand. It was surprising because if this dating is correct, the red disk becomes about 4.000 years earlier than the paintings of Grotte Chauvet that has been said to be the world's oldest, and not only that, it can not be ruled out that the earliest paintings were created by Neanderthals, which were estimated to present in the Cantabrian regions until at least 42,000 to 36,000 years B.P. This is our main reason why we decided to publish this book in POD.
Contents] 1. The Art of Upper Paleolithic hunters. Introduction to cave art in the Iberian Peninsula.
2. Everyday art. Upper Paleolithic decorated objects in the Cantabrian Region.
3. The western Cantabrian Region. Introduction to Paleolithic Cave Art in Asturias.
3.1. Cueva de la PeOa de Candamo
3.2. Cueva de La Lluera I
3.3. Cueva de Tito Bustillo
3.4. Cueva de El Buxu
3.5. Cueva de El Pindal
3.6. Cueva de La Loja
4. The Central Cantabrian Valleys. Introduction to Paleolithic Cave Art in Cantabria.
4.1. Cueva de ChufIn
4.2. Cueva de Altamira
4.3. Cueva de Hornos de la Pe n a
4.4. Cueva del Castillo
4.5. Cueva de Las Chimeneas
4.6. Cueva de La Pasiega
4.7. Cueva de Las Monedas
4.8. Cueva de Sant i an
4.9. Cueva de El Pendo
4.10. Cueva de La Haza
4.11. Cueva de Covalanas
4.12. Cueva de Pondra
5. The End of the Cantabrian Corridor. Introduction to Paleolithic Art assemblages in the Basque Country.
5.1. Cueva de Venta de la Perra
5.2. Cueva de Arenaza
5.3. Cueva de Santimami n e
5.4. Cueva de Ekain
6. General Bibliography

This early work by Franz Boas was originally published in 1897 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Decorative Art of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast' is an analysis of the various carving techniques and symbolism present in Native American art. Franz Boas was born on July 9th 1958, in Minden, Westphalia. Even though Boas had a passion the natural sciences, he enrolled at the University at Kiel as an undergraduate in Physics. Boas completed his degree with a dissertation on the optical properties of water, before continuing his studies and receiving his doctorate in 1881. Boas became a professor of Anthropology at Columbia University in 1899 and founded the first Ph.D program in anthropology in America. He was also a leading figure in the creation of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Franz Boas had a long career and a great impact on many areas of study. He died on 21st December 1942.

This early work by Franz Boas was originally published in 1927 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Primitive Art' is an attempt to give an analytical description of the fundamental traits of primitive art. Franz Boas was born on July 9th 1958, in Minden, Germany. Boas enrolled at the University at Kiel as an undergraduate in Physics. He completed his degree with a dissertation on the optical properties of water, before continuing his studies and receiving his doctorate in 1881. He became a professor of Anthropology at Columbia University in 1899 and founded the first Ph.D program in anthropology in America. He was also a leading figure in the creation of the American Anthropological Association

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

Rock Art Studies: News of the World VI, like the previous editions in the series, covers rock art research and management all over the world over a five-year period, in this case, the years 2015 to 2019 inclusive. The current volume once again shows the wide variety of approaches that have been taken in different parts of the world and reflects the expansion and diversification of perspectives and research questions. One constant has been the impact of new techniques of recording rock art. This is especially evident in the realm of computer enhancement of the frequently faded and weathered rock imagery. As has been the case in past volumes, this collection of papers includes all of the latest discoveries, including in areas hitherto not known to contain rock art. While relatively little has happened in some areas, a great deal has occurred in others. Rock art studies continue to go through a period of intense scientific and technological development, but at the same time - due to the problems of preservation and vandalism - it is crucial to educate local people and the young about the importance of this fragile heritage.

Rocks, Riddles and Mysteries: Folk Art, Inscriptions and Other Stories in Stone, by Edward J. Lenik

Archaeologist and author Ed Lenik is widely known for his expertise in northeastern Native American rock art. In the course of his travels and research, he has encountered many strange and curious historical rock and stone carvings and structures, some of which may be regarded as Indian, but the majority of which by his reckoning are "white guy" art. This book describes those sites and objects and the fascinating stories behind their creation.

Puzzling, captivating, and at time bewildering, these historical curiosities include faces, animals, designs, patterns and scenes carved on rocks through New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The author has personally probed and researched each site in some detail, learning when it was first noticed and what the local people had to say about why it was there and who carved or painted it.

Tourist attractions? Boy Scout art? Idle play among quarry workers? Archaeological fraud? Hebrew inscriptions? Outsider art? Norse runes? You can decide, since a "See For Yourself" section invites you to visit the sites that are publicly accessible so that you may draw your own conclusions.

Lenik, a Registered Archaeologist, is a past president of the Archaeological Society of New Jersey and the Eastern State Archaeological Federation. As Honorary curator of archaeology at Bear Mountain's (New York) Trailside Museums, he is a well-known speaker and hike leader in northern New Jersey and southeastern New York.,

Designed to be used in the field, or as an enjoyable read in the armchair, this guide will transport the reader on an adventure of discovery, visiting curious places, looking at mysterious rocks and hearing the stories they have to tell.

These essays, from a session of the 15th uispp congress, investigate the ways in which prehistoric rock art interacted with the landscape to define symbolic space. The authors look at how the study of rock art can help to define prehistoric cultures and territories, as well as to symbolicaly demarcate space both in the context of a broad landscape and in, for example, an individual cave. Essays in French and English.

With 49 drawings by the author and over 60 photographs, this attractive and user-friendly book guides the reader through all the steps necessary to make a successful and effective atlatl and dart system for competition, hunting, or just plain fun. Along with redesigned atlatl plans and all new dart designs, the reader will find information and instruction on traditional hafting and fletching techniques, how to use sinew, making and attaching weights, tips on atlatl mechanics and how they effect dart performance, and more. THE NEW ATLATL AND DART WORKBOOK is a valuable reference and resource for both beginning and more knowledgeable atlatl enthusiasts.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the soliform figures in schematic cave paintings. The author presents research on all the global factors relevant to the study of these figures (technological, typological, stylistic, semiotic, astronomical, anthropological and landscape) and their relationship with the whole of schematic rock paintings and the societies that produced them. The geographical scope of the study is the area of Laguna de la Janda and Campo de Gibraltar (Cadiz). One of the arguments the author maintains in this research is the shortage of studies conducted in the territory of Cadiz in relation to these figures – and to rock art in general, which has been a central motif in almost all primitive religions or mythologies since the birth of agricultural societies. The recurrence of abstract motifs within the rock art of this area, and its durability over time, could be an indication of common cultural patterns among the different populations that inhabited the province. But these same signs are also repeated in different parts of the world – could it therefore suggest universal aspects of our species? The interpretation of these symbols has been – and continues to be – subject to intangible or subjective issues; therefore, it is not exempt from possible projections of our own culture. We think that we are able to approach, in a scientific way, the ritual and symbolic aspects of those who elaborated these paintings. In this book, the author proposes an alternative according to the theoretical framework of disciplines such as ethnography, anthropology, landscape archaeology, archaeoastronomy and semiotics.

Visual Culture, Heritage and Identity: Using Rock Art to Reconnect Past and Present sets out a fresh perspective on rock art by considering how ancient images function in the present. In recent decades, archaeological approaches to rock paintings and engravings have significantly advanced our understanding of rock art in regional and global terms. On the other hand, however, little research has been done on contemporary uses of rock art. How does ancient rock art heritage influence contemporary cultural phenomena? And how do past images function in the present, especially in contemporary art and other media? In the past, archaeologists usually concentrated more on reconstructing the semantic and social contexts of the ancient images. This volume, on the other hand, focuses on how this ancient heritage is recognised and reified in the modern world, and how this art stimulates contemporary processes of cultural identity-making. The authors, who are based all over the world, off er attractive and compelling case studies situated in diverse cultural and geographical contexts.

Traditional approaches to studying rock art centred on the production of gazetteers of sites and examples, but in recent years the tide has turned significantly. This study adds to the genre of research that seeks to provide meaningful interpretations of the purpose and significance of rock-art. Drawing on ideas and theories from other, non-British and non-Irish traditions, Edward Evans looks at the creation of images in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland, and looks at its relationship with the landscape and architecture in new ways.

" Rock Art of Kentucky is the first comprehensive documentation of the fragile remnants of Kentucky's prehistoric Native American rock art sites. Found in twenty-two of Kentucky's counties, these sites pan a period of more than three thousand years. The most frequent design elements in Kentucky rock art are engravings of the footprints of birds, quadrupeds, and humans. Other design elements include anthropomorphs, mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and abstract and geometric figures. Included in the book are stunning illustrations of the sixty confirmed sites and ten destroyed or questionable sites. In the thirty some years during which this information was collected, there has been an alarming deterioration of many of the sites. Ancient carvings have been destroyed by graffiti or have lost extensive detail because of climatic or environmental conditions, such as acid rain. Although all the Kentucky sites are officially listed on the National register of Historic Places, several no long exist or are at present inaccessible. In addition to making data available for the first time to the national and international archaeological community for further comparative and interpretive studies, Rock Art of Kentucky is also for nonspecialists interested in prehistoric Kentucky and Native American studies.

The breathtakingly beautiful art created deep inside the caves of western Europe in the late Ice Age has the power to dazzle even the most jaded observers. Emerging from the narrow underground passages into the chambers of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira, visitors are confronted with symbols, patterns, and depictions of bison, woolly mammoths, ibexes, and other animals.

Since its discovery, cave art has provoked great curiosity about why it appeared when and where it did, how it was made, and what it meant to the communities that created it. In the most convincing explanation for Upper Palaeolithic art yet proposed, David Lewis-Williams describes how nineteenth-century beliefs that the drawings were "art for art's sake, " or totemism, were supplanted in the wake of Darwinian evolutionary theory. The earliest human beings had a more advanced neurological makeup than their Neanderthal neighbors, allowing individuals to induce altered states of consciousness during which they experienced vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix, " or paint, these images onto cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged.

Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aestheticachievements.

Although cave paintings from the European Ice Age have has gained considerable renown, for many people the term "rock art" remains full of mystery. Yet it refers to perhaps the oldest form of artistic endeavor, splendid examples of which exist on all continents and from all eras. Rock art stretches in time from about forty thousand to less than forty years ago and can be found from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America, from the caves of southern France to the American Southwest. It includes animal and human figures, complex geometrical forms, and myriad mysterious markings.
Illustrated in color throughout, this book provides an engaging overview of rock art worldwide. An introductory chapter discusses the discovery of rock art by the West and the importance of landscape and ritual. Subsequent chapters survey rock art sites throughout the world, explaining how the art can be dated and how it was made. The book then explores the meaning of these often enigmatic images, including the complex role they played in traditional societies. A final chapter looks at the threats posed to rock art today by development, tourism, pollution, and other dangers, and discusses current initiatives to preserve this remarkable heritage.

Creativity is embedded in human history. Indeed, it is impossible to understand material change and the development of the new without invoking creativity. The location, exploration and analysis of creativity should therefore be of particular concern to archaeologists. This volume engages with this challenge by focusing on the outcomes of creativity - material culture - and an exploration of creative practice. The European Bronze Age provides a useful focus for discussions of the outcomes of creativity because in this period we see the development of new and pre-existing materials that we take for granted today, in particular textiles and bronze. We also see new ways of working with existing materials, such as clay, to create novel forms. In both new and existing materials it is frequently possible to see the growth of technical skill, to produce complex forms and elaborate decorated surfaces. The papers in this volume view Bronze Age objects through the lens of creativity in order to offer fresh insights into the interaction between people and the world, as well as the individual and cultural processes that lie behind creative expression. Many have their origin in the international conference Creativity: An Exploration Through the Bronze Age and Contemporary Responses to the Bronze Age held at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge in 2103 as part of the HERA-funded project Creativity and Craft Production in Middle and Late Bronze Age Europe. Contributions span the early to late Bronze Age, deal with a range of materials including textiles, metal, and ceramics, and reflect on data from across the continent including Iberia, Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe. This breadth illustrates the wideranging importance and applicability of creativity as an heuristic concept. The volume further develops a range of theoretical and methodological directions, opening up new avenues for the study of creativity in the past.

This book contains a series of selected papers presented at two symposia entitled 'Scientific study of rock art', one held in the IFRAO Congress of Rock Art in La Paz, Bolivia, in June 2012, the other held in the IFRAO Congress in Caceres, Spain, in September 2015; as well as some invited papers from leading rock art scientists. The core topic of the book is the presentation of scientific approaches to the materiality of rock art, ranging from recording and sampling methods to data analyses. These share the fact that they provide means of testing hypotheses and/or of finding trends in the data which can be used as independent sources of evidence to support specific interpretations. The issue of the materiality of visual productions of the distant past, which in archaeological theory has attracted much attention recently and has stimulated much conceptual debate, is addressed through a variety of scientific approaches, including fieldwork methods, laboratory work techniques and/or data analysis protocols. These, in turn, will provide new insights into human agency and people-image engagements through the study of rock art production, display and use.

A beautiful and simple introduction to the Book of Kells, one of the world's most famous illuminated manuscripts, with a newly-expanded colour plate section. Here George Otto Simms, a world-renowned authority on the Book of Kells, reveals the mysteries hidden in this magnificent manuscript. He introduces the monks who made the book and guides the reader through the intricate detail of this ancient and exotic book. Also available in French, German, Spanish and Japanese.

In the realm of rock art, humanlike images appear widely through time and space from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and for some continents to later, yet still prehistoric, times. The artworks discussed in Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings range from paintings, engravings or scratchings on cave walls and rock shelters, images pecked into rocky surfaces or upon standing stones, and major sacred sites (among them Gobekli Tepe, Avebury, Stonehenge, and the Palaeolithic Chauvet Cave) in which the possibility exists of recovery of the meanings intended by the artists and sculptors. Such prospects can relate to known or inferred legends, myths, folklore, rites and ritual, and often allude to matters that recognise the unremitting benefits of human, animal and crop fertility to humankind. Occasionally, relevant art forms are present not in whole but as pars pro toto, in which a part stands for or symbolises the whole. Images or artistic compositions often articulate, in ways more or less manifest, scenes of dramatic action as with hunting and dancing, mating and birthing, ritual and ceremony, some of which may openly or latently express yearnings for the rewards of fruitful fecundity - as with the much-loved worldview known as the hieros gamos or Sacred Marriage.

The German ethnologist and explorer Theodor Koch-Grunberg (1872-1924) discusses the origin and significance of rock art in South America in this study, originally published in 1907. In the first part of the book Koch-Grunberg traces the earliest mention of Brazilian rock art to an eighteenth-century German explorer and gives a wide-ranging account of rock paintings found in South America, engaging critically with the interpretations proposed by some of his fellow scholars. In the second part of the work, the author reproduces (either as drawings or photographs) 29 rock paintings that he himself discovered during one of his expeditions to the Yapura River and the Rio Negro (Venezuela) in 1903-1905. He comments on the characteristics and significance of each of the paintings and assesses their impact within the larger ethnological context of the indigenous tribes of that area.

Memory and Agency in Ancient China offers a novel perspective on China's material culture. The volume explores the complex 'life histories' of selected objects, whose trajectories as ginle objects ('biographies') and object types ('lineages') cut across both temporal and physical space. The essays, written by a team of international scholars, analyse the objects in an effort to understand how they were shaped by the constraints of their social, political and aesthetic contexts, just as they were also guided by individual preference and capricious memory. They also demonstrate how objects were capable of effecting change. Ranging chronologically from the Neolithic to the present, and spatially from northern to southern mainland China and Taiwan, this book highlights the varied approaches that archaeologists and art historians use when attempting to reconstruct object trajectories. It also showcases the challenges they face, particularly with the unearthing of objects from archaeological contexts that, paradoxically, come to represent the earliest known point of their 'post-recovery lives'.