Download Free Rock Art And Regional Identity Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Rock Art And Regional Identity and write the review.

This unique volume demonstrates that there are archaeological and anthropological ways of accessing the past in order to investigate and explain the significance of rock art motifs, and highlights the importance of regional rock art studies and regional variations.
Why did the ancient artists create paintings and engravings? What did the images mean? This careful study of rock art motifs in the Trans-Pecos area of Texas and a small area in South Africa demonstrates that there are archaeological and anthropological ways of accessing the past in order to investigate and explain the significance of rock art motifs. Using two disparate regions shows the possibility of comparative rock art studies and highlights the importance of regional studies and regional variations. This is an ideal resource for students and researchers.
This book presents a fresh perspective on rock art by considering how ancient images function in the present. It focuses on how ancient heritage is recognized and reified in the modern world, and how rock art stimulates contemporary processes of cultural identity-making.
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
Focusing on stunning paintings and engravings from around the world, 16 papers interrogate the driving forces behind global rock art research. Many of the motifs featured were created by indigenous hunter-gatherer groups; this book sheds new light on non-Western rituals and worldviews, many of which are threatened or on the point of extinction.
Rock art has long been considered an archaeological artifact reflecting activities from the past, yet it is also a phenomenon with present-day meaning and relevance to both indigenous and non-indigenous communities. Relating to Rock Art in the Contemporary World challenges traditional ways of thinking about this highly recognizable form of visual heritage and provides insight into its contemporary significance. One of the most visually striking forms of material culture embedded in landscapes, rock art is ascribed different meanings by diverse groups of people including indigenous peoples, governments, tourism offices, and the general public, all of whom relate to images and sites in unique ways. In this volume, leading scholars from around the globe shift the discourse from a primarily archaeological basis to one that examines the myriad ways that symbolism, meaning, and significance in rock art are being renegotiated in various geographical and cultural settings, from Australia to the British Isles. They also consider how people manage the complex meanings, emotions, and cultural and political practices tied to rock art sites and how these factors impact processes relating to identity construction and reaffirmation today. Richly illustrated and geographically diverse, Relating to Rock Art in the Contemporary World connects archaeology, anthropology, and heritage studies. The book will appeal to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, heritage, heritage management, identity studies, art history, indigenous studies, and visual theory, as well as professionals and amateurs who have vested or avocational interests in rock art. Contributors: Agustín Acevedo, Manuel Bea, Jutinach Bowonsachoti, Gemma Boyle, John J. Bradley, Noelene Cole, Inés Domingo, Kurt E. Dongoske, Davida Eisenberg-Degen, Dánae Fiore, Ursula K. Frederick, Kelley Hays-Gilpin, Catherine Namono, George H. Nash, John Norder, Marianna Ocampo, Joshua Schmidt, Duangpond Singhaseni, Benjamin W. Smith, Atthasit Sukkham, Noel Hidalgo Tan, Watinee Tanompolkrang, Luke Taylor, Dagmara Zawadzka
Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it spans much of the period of our species' existence. Rock art also provides rare and often unique insights into the minds and visually creative capacities of our ancestors and how selected rock outcrops with distinctive images were used to construct symbolic landscapes and shape worldviews. Equally important, rock art is often central to the expression of and engagement with spiritual entities and forces, and in all these dimensions it signals the diversity of cultural practices, across place and through time. Over the past 150 years, archaeologists have studied ancient arts on rock surfaces, both out in the open and within caves and rock shelters, and social anthropologists have revealed how people today use art in their daily lives. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art showcases examples of such research from around the world and across a broad range of cultural contexts, giving a sense of the art's regional variability, its antiquity, and how it is meaningful to people in the recent past and today - including how we have ourselves tended to make sense of the art of others, replete with our own preconceptions. It reviews past, present, and emerging theoretical approaches to rock art investigation and presents new, cutting-edge methods of rock art analysis for the student and professional researcher alike.
Ontologies of Rock Art is the first publication to explore a wide range of ontological approaches to rock art interpretation, constituting the basis for groundbreaking studies on Indigenous knowledges, relational metaphysics, and rock imageries. The book contributes to the growing body of research on the ontology of images by focusing on five main topics: ontology as a theoretical framework; the development of new concepts and methods for an ontological approach to rock art; the examination of the relationships between ontology, images, and Indigenous knowledges; the development of relational models for the analysis of rock images; and the impact of ontological approaches on different rock art traditions across the world. Generating new avenues of research in ontological theory, political ontology, and rock art research, this collection will be relevant to archaeologists, anthropologists, and philosophers. In the context of an increasing interest in Indigenous ontologies, the volume will also be of interest to scholars in Indigenous studies. Chapter 14 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429321863/ontologies-rock-art-oscar-moro-abad%C3%ADa-martin-porr?context=ubx&refId=3766b051-4754-4339-925c-2a262a505074
This book explores a suite of spatially close San (Bushmen) rock painting sites in the Maclear District of South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. As a suite, the sites are remarkable because, despite their proximity to each other, they share patterns of similarity and simultaneous difference.
Cognitive Archaeology is a relatively young though fast growing discipline. The intellectual heart of cognitive archaeology is archaeology, the discipline that investigates the only direct evidence of the actions and decisions of prehistoric people. Its theories and methods are an eclectic mix of psychological, neuroscientific, paleoneurological, philosophical, anthropological, ethnographic, comparative, aesthetic, and experimental theories, methods, and models, united only by their focus on cognition. The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology is a landmark publication, showcasing the theories, methods, and accomplishments of archaeologists who investigate the human mind, including its evolutionary development, its ideation (thoughts and beliefs), and its very nature-through material forms. The volume encompasses the wide spectrum of the discipline, showcasing contributions from more than 50 established and emerging scholars from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Prominent among these are contributions that discuss the epistemological frameworks of both the evolutionary and ideational approaches and the leading theories that ground interpretations. Significantly, the majority of chapters deliver substantive contributions that analyze specific examples of material culture, from the oldest known stone tools to ceramic and rock art traditions of the recent millennium. These examples include the gamut of methods and techniques, including typology, replication studies, cha?nes operatoires, neuroarchaeology, ethnographic comparison, and the direct historical approach. In addition, the book begins with retrospective essays by several of the pioneers of cognitive archaeology, presenting a broad range of state-of-the-art investigations into cognitive abilities, tackling thorny issues like the cognitive status of Neandertals, and concluding with speculative essays about the future of an archaeology of mind, and of the mind itself.