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Leading scholars in these 29 commissioned papers in honour of
Richard Bradley discuss key themes in prehistoric archaeology that
have defined his career, such as monumentality, memory, rock art,
landscape, material worlds and field practice. The scope is broad,
covering both Britain and Europe, and while the focus is very much
on the archaeology of later prehistory, papers also address the
interconnection between prehistory and historic and contemporary
archaeology. The result is a rich and varied tribute to Richard's
energy and intellectual inspiration.
Borrowing from the feminist scholar Karen Barad, the authors ask
what happens when we diffract the formal techniques of
archaeological digital imaging through a different set of
disciplinary concerns and practices. Diffracting exposes the
differences between archaeologists, heritage practitioners and
artists and foregrounds how their differing practices and
approaches enrich and inform each other. How might the digital
imaging techniques used by archaeologists be adopted by digital
artists, and what are the potentials associated with this adoption?
Under the gaze of fine artists, what happens to the fidelity of the
digital images made by archaeologists, and what new questions do we
ask of the digital image? How can the critical approaches and
practices of fine artists inform the future practice of digital
imaging in archaeology and cultural heritage? Diffracting Digital
Images will be of interest to students and scholars in archaeology,
cultural heritage studies, anthropology, fine art, digital
humanities, and media theory.
A new generation of archaeologists has thrown down a challenge to
post-processual theory, arguing that characterizing material
symbols as arbitrary overlooks the material character and
significance of artifacts. This volume showcases the significant
departure from previous symbolic approaches that is underway in the
discipline. It brings together key scholars advancing a variety of
cutting edge approaches, each emphasizing an understanding of
artifacts and materials not in terms of symbols but relationally,
as a set of associations that compose people's understanding of the
world. Authors draw on a diversity of intellectual sources and case
studies, paving a dynamic road ahead for archaeology as a
discipline and theoretical approaches to material culture.
Borrowing from the feminist scholar Karen Barad, the authors ask
what happens when we diffract the formal techniques of
archaeological digital imaging through a different set of
disciplinary concerns and practices. Diffracting exposes the
differences between archaeologists, heritage practitioners and
artists and foregrounds how their differing practices and
approaches enrich and inform each other. How might the digital
imaging techniques used by archaeologists be adopted by digital
artists, and what are the potentials associated with this adoption?
Under the gaze of fine artists, what happens to the fidelity of the
digital images made by archaeologists, and what new questions do we
ask of the digital image? How can the critical approaches and
practices of fine artists inform the future practice of digital
imaging in archaeology and cultural heritage? Diffracting Digital
Images will be of interest to students and scholars in archaeology,
cultural heritage studies, anthropology, fine art, digital
humanities, and media theory.
A new generation of archaeologists has thrown down a challenge to
post-processual theory, arguing that characterizing material
symbols as arbitrary overlooks the material character and
significance of artifacts. This volume showcases the significant
departure from previous symbolic approaches that is underway in the
discipline. It brings together key scholars advancing a variety of
cutting edge approaches, each emphasizing an understanding of
artifacts and materials not in terms of symbols but relationally,
as a set of associations that compose people's understanding of the
world. Authors draw on a diversity of intellectual sources and case
studies, paving a dynamic road ahead for archaeology as a
discipline and theoretical approaches to material culture.
The visual imagery of Neolithic Britain and Ireland is spectacular.
While the imagery of passage tombs, such as Knowth and Newgrange,
are well known the rich imagery on decorated portable artefacts is
less well understood. How does the visual imagery found on
decorated portable artefacts compare with other Neolithic imagery,
such as passage tomb art and rock art? How do decorated portable
artefacts relate chronologically to other examples of Neolithic
imagery? Using cutting edge digital imaging techniques, the Making
a Mark project examined Neolithic decorated portable artefacts of
chalk, stone, bone, antler, and wood from three key regions:
southern England and East Anglia; the Irish Sea region (Wales, the
Isle of Man and eastern Ireland); and Northeast Scotland and
Orkney. Digital analysis revealed, for the first time, the
prevalence of practices of erasure and reworking amongst a host of
decorated portable artefacts, changing our understanding of these
enigmatic artefacts. Rather than mark making being a peripheral
activity, we can now appreciate the central importance of mark
making to the formation of Neolithic communities across Britain and
Ireland. The volume visually documents and discusses the contexts
of the decorated portable artefacts from each region, discusses the
significance and chronology of practices of erasure and reworking,
and compares these practices with those found in other Neolithic
contexts, such as passage tomb art, rock art and pottery
decoration. A contribution from Antonia Thomas also discusses the
settlement art and mortuary art of Orkney, while Ian Dawson and
Louisa Minkin contribute with a discussion of the collaborative
fine art practices established during the project.
How can archaeologists interpret ancient art and images if they do
not treat them as symbols or signifiers of identity? Traditional
approaches to the archaeology of art have borrowed from the history
of art and the anthropology of art by focusing on iconography,
meaning, communication and identity. This puts the archaeology of
art at a disadvantage as an understanding of iconography and
meaning requires a detailed knowledge of historical or ethnographic
context unavailable to many archaeologists. Rather than playing to
archaeology's weaknesses, the authors argue that an archaeology of
art should instead play to archaeology's strength: the material
character of archaeological evidence. Using case studies -
examining rock art, figurines, beadwork, murals, coffin
decorations, sculpture and architecture from Europe, the Americas,
Asia, Australia, and north Africa -the authors develop an
understanding of the affective and effective nature of ancient art
and imagery. An analysis of a series of material-based practices,
from gesture and improvisation to miniaturisation and gigantism,
assembly and disassembly and the use of distinctions in colour
enable key concepts, such as style and meaning, to be re-imagined
as affective practices. Recasting the archaeology of art as the
study of affects offers a new prospectus for the study of ancient
art and imagery.
How can archaeologists interpret ancient art and images if they do
not treat them as symbols or signifiers of identity? Traditional
approaches to the archaeology of art have borrowed from the history
of art and the anthropology of art by focusing on iconography,
meaning, communication and identity. This puts the archaeology of
art at a disadvantage as an understanding of iconography and
meaning requires a detailed knowledge of historical or ethnographic
context unavailable to many archaeologists. Rather than playing to
archaeology's weaknesses, the authors argue that an archaeology of
art should instead play to archaeology's strength: the material
character of archaeological evidence. Using case studies -
examining rock art, figurines, beadwork, murals, coffin
decorations, sculpture and architecture from Europe, the Americas,
Asia, Australia, and north Africa -the authors develop an
understanding of the affective and effective nature of ancient art
and imagery. An analysis of a series of material-based practices,
from gesture and improvisation to miniaturisation and gigantism,
assembly and disassembly and the use of distinctions in colour
enable key concepts, such as style and meaning, to be re-imagined
as affective practices. Recasting the archaeology of art as the
study of affects offers a new prospectus for the study of ancient
art and imagery.
This book offers an analysis of archaeological imagery based on new
materialist approaches. Reassessing the representational paradigm
of archaeological image analysis, it argues for the importance of
ontology, redefining images as material processes or events that
draw together differing aspects of the world. The book is divided
into three sections: 'Emergent images', which focuses on practices
of making; 'Images as process', which examines the making and role
of images in prehistoric societies; and 'Unfolding images', which
focuses on how images change as they are made and circulated.
Featuring contributions from archaeologists, Egyptologists,
anthropologists and artists, it highlights the multiple role of
images in prehistoric and historic societies, while demonstrating
that scholars need to recognise their dynamic and changeable
character. -- .
Leading scholars in these 29 commissioned papers in honour of
Richard Bradley discuss key themes in prehistoric archaeology that
have defined his career, such as monumentality, memory, rock art,
landscape, material worlds and field practice. The scope is broad,
covering both Britain and Europe, and while the focus is very much
on the archaeology of later prehistory, papers also address the
interconnection between prehistory and historic and contemporary
archaeology. The result is a rich and varied tribute to Richard's
energy and intellectual inspiration.
This volume derives from a workshop held at the University of
Kalmar (now Linnaeus University), Sweden between the 20-24 of
October 2008. The aim of this gathering was to provide a forum for
rock art researchers from different parts of northern Europe to
discuss traditional as well as current interpretative trends within
rock art research. Changing Pictures aims to return to traditional
interpretative notions regarding the meaning and significance of
rock art to investigate if and why any information had been left
behind to recover and rethink. During the last decades, there has
been an immense global interest among archaeologists and
anthropologists in studying rock art. Research in northern Europe,
as elsewhere, has intensely explored a manifold of methodological
and theoretical perspectives. Most of these studies however, have
been published in languages that seldom reach beyond the native
speakers of Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish, Russian or Finnish.
Therefore an important motivation for this volume is to try to
apprise some of the current movements within this field of research
and present it for an international audience. These papers explore
the relevance of older ideas, such as notions about prehistoric
religion, ritual performance, sympathetic magic, animism and
totemism, the mindscapes of landscapes etc., as well as the present
"state of the art" in order to develop a broader understanding of
the phenomenon we call rock art. This aspiration can be seen as a
common thread linking the different chapters in this book. Saying
that, some, if not all, of the articles presented in this volume
challenge the notion "rock art" itself, arguing that sometimes the
rock, the "canvas" and rather intangible but equally important
sensual encounters, such as sound, echoes, touch and temporal
phenomenological changes and the perception of decorated rock art
panels, should be regarded, at least, as important as the "art"
itself. By reassessing traditional approaches to Scandinavian rock
art and creatively reworking these ideas, whilst also addressing
significant new concepts such as the agency of rock and the
performativity of rock art, this anthology of papers offers not
only a snapshot of current debates, but also reflects pivotal
changes in the study of rock art.
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